Fact Check: Los Angeles wildfires captured in viral video? No, compilation contains AI-generated clips
A video compilation purporting showing apocalyptic scenes from the Los Angeles wildfires was generated by AI.
By M Ramesh Naik Published on 17 Jan 2025 10:35 PM IST
Claim: The video shows ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles, California.
Fact: The claim is false. Most of the video is AI-generated with inserts of real unrelated clips.
Hyderabad: As of January 15, two massive wildfires that began on January 7 continued to rage through parts of Los Angeles County, claiming the lives of at least two dozen people and burning an area equivalent to Washington, DC, damaging or destroying 12,000 structures in their wake.
Amid this crisis, a video compilation lasting 4 minutes and 12 seconds is being widely shared on social media.
The video, which shows scenes of mountains ablaze, firefighters trying to control the fire, a city engulfed in flames and other apocalyptic visuals, is being circulated with the claim that it shows real footage of the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles.
A Facebook user shared the video with the caption: ācalifornia wildfires 2025 airplane ā¢ Los Angeles Update Now ā¢ california news. (sic)ā (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false. The video contains multiple clips that are AI-generated. Some clips, while genuine, are unrelated to the current wildfires in Los Angeles.
To verify the claim, NewsMeter analysed the video by extracting keyframes and running them through AI detection tools. The analysis revealed that the video was created by merging more than 30 clips showing wildfires.
The extracted keyframes were analysed using two AI detection tools, WasItAI and Sightengine. Here are the results.
Five video clips, each less than 30 seconds long, were analysed by Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool. The results showed a high likelihood of AI-generated content, with aggregate scores of 99.1 per cent, 98.6 per cent, 99.7 per cent, 99.4 per cent and 99.9 per cent, respectively.
Furthermore, some clips in the compilation were identified as authentic but unrelated to the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles. These clips were traced back to older incidents.
A video clip from the viral compilation, showing cattle escaping or running away from a wildfire, was traced back to Brazil. It was uploaded on Facebook on October 5, 2020.
Another clip, showing firefighters extinguishing fire on a rooftop, is from March 31, 2019, as per the description of a YouTube video uploaded on April 5, 2019. A viral clip showing a helicopter firefighting a forest fire has been on the internet since August 2, 2021.
Another clip from the viral video, where multiple cars parked are engulfed in flames, was uploaded on YouTube on June 3, 2024. While the video is from Los Angeles, it is unrelated to the 2025 wildfires.
Here is a comparison of the viral video clips and their original videos with dates.
Therefore, we conclude that the claim that the viral video shows the raging wildfire in California is false. While some clips are AI-generated, others are unrelated to the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.
