In my study of two vortexes, fire whirls and tornadoes, I have come to hear a bit about vortex attachment. As far as I can understand, a vortex is attached to its "power source" for lack of a better term and cannot leave it without rapidly losing energy.
For instance, a fire whirl is attached to the hot fire ground from where it draws its energy.
And a tornado is attached the the Supercell thunderstorm it spawns from.
However I have also heard (and seen) more complicated variations. One of these being Landspouts with a surface spawned and attached rotation getting stretched into thunderstorms and then becoming full fledged tornadoes.
Or along different lines, the Canberra fire spawned Supercell tornado. The tornado was attached to the fire and the storm at the same time. (Interesting thought) If that supercell stopped producing the tornado, would the fire keep it going in some form?
What I want to know
What exactly determines vortex attachment?
Can a vortex have more than one simultaneous attachment?