  Disordered systems under applied loading display slow creep flows at finite
temperature, which can lead to the material rupture. Renormalization group
arguments predicted that creep proceeds via thermal avalanches of activated
events. Recently, thermal avalanches were argued to control the dynamics of
liquids near their glass transition. Both theoretical approaches are markedly
different. Here we provide a scaling description that seeks to unify dynamical
heterogeneities in both phenomena, confirm it in simple models of pinned
elastic interfaces, and discuss its experimental implications.
