The most extreme wildfires are increasing in intensity and frequency and create their own weather. In the first part of this talk, dynamical theory for the self-organisation of wildfire smoke from the surface to the stratosphere will be presented. Topics include aerosol-filled vortices, self-reinforcing instabilities associated with wildfire smoke, and physics of wildfire-driven plumes. The second part of the talk will focus on granular dynamics in the cryosphere, work that is broadly motivated by improving sea level rise projections. Mélanges of sea ice and icebergs clog fjords where glaciers terminate and have been hypothesised to buttress glacier fronts and inhibit calving. Using frozen laboratory analogues and field data as rheometers, progress towards characterising mélange buttressing and flow will be presented. The talk will conclude with an outlook on the dynamics of wildfire and ice.
