Wildfires raging in western Canada are creating 'fire-breathing' thunderstorms

Raging wildfires in British Columbia are combining with record heat to create ferocious vertical 'fire clouds' that generate their own weather. The North American Lightning Detection Network reported that between 3pm Wednesday and 6am on Thursday, the clouds generated more than 710,000 lightning strikes in British Columbia and northwest Alberta, according to SFGate. Scroll down for video The ravaging smoke and fire in Lytton, British Columbia, combined with record temperatures to form anvil-shaped pyrocumulonimbus clouds above the village on Thursday Some 90 percent of the village has been destroyed, and at least two people reported dead, after a devastating wildfire tore through Lytton Normal thunderstorms are caused by the cycle of moisture and heat rising into the sky, cooling and sinking, and then rising again, in a process known as convection. Kyle Brittain, the Weather Network's Alberta Bureau Chief, posted images of pyrocumulonimbus cloud forming over Walhachin, British Columbia, about 70 miles from Lytton 'This is a literal firestorm, producing thousands of lightning strikes and almost certainly countless new fires.' Kyle Brittain, Alberta Bureau Chief for the Weather Network, posted images of pyrocumulonimbus clouds forming in both the Sparks Lake and McKay Creek wildfires in British Columbia.