Mid-IR emission from the central degrees of the Milky Way. Top left: emission at 12.08 μm as observed by WISE. The highest concentration of warm dust is distributed along the Galactic plane. Spurs of material are clearly observed to emerge vertically from the plane. Top right: emission at 22.2 μm as observed by WISE. The most prominent spurs of matter are highlighted by white dashed lines. At northern latitudes both the western and eastern spurs are clearly associated with the northern chimney and delineate a lobe clearly associated with the observed radio emission. The magenta dashed line delineates the silhouette of AFGL 5376. The detection of similar spurs in the southern hemisphere is complicated by the presence of well-known, bright foreground star-forming regions (highlighted by the blue ellipses). Bottom left: zoom-in toward the northern chimney. Red, green, and blue show the 12.08 μm, the ratio 22.2 μm/12.08 μm, and 22.2 μm emission, respectively. Warm dust surrounds the entire chimney. Also, the 22.2 μm emission peaks inside the location of the western shock and of the 12.08 μm emission spur. AFGL 5376 lies inside the edge of the warm gas and traces a ~ 90 pc long molecular shock. Bottom right: same as previous but substituting the ratio map with the radio emission observed by MeerKAT. The radio emission is very well correlated with the warm dust emission. In particular, the radio emission traces the perimeter of AFGL 5376 more tightly than the warm dust emission.