A forest fire that spreads from treetop to treetop.When that happens, a crown fire breaks out, and the forest can burn with destructive intensity....
Sometimes a rapid crown fire singes pine cones hut the seeds inside are protected.
But dead wood and saplings serve as a ladder for surface fires to climb into the canopy, where they become the blast furnace of wildfires: the crown fire, in which temperatures surge beyond 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.