Backdrafts were publicized by the 1991 movie Backdraft, in which a serial arsonist in Chicago was using them as a means of assassinating conspirators in a scam.
In the film adaptation of Stephen Kings 1408', the protagonist Mike Enslin induces one as a last-ditch effort to kill the room.
The term is also used and is the title of a scene in the 2012 video game Root Double: Before Crime * After Days.