Fact Check: Video of fire at Australian parking lot falsely shared as French riots

Hyderabad: A video showing a massive flame engulfing cars at a parking lot went viral on social media, with users claiming that the video is from France. A Twitter user shared the video with the caption, “#Jihadist mob sets fire to multi-level car parking at Marseille #France. (sic)”

The video has been also shared on Facebook and YouTube with the same claim.

Fact Check

NewsMeter investigation found that the video is of a fire at Pickles auction yard in Perth, Australia.

We fragmented the video into keyframes and performed a reverse image search on a few frames. It led us to a tweet by Jacey Knowles from April 28, which has three videos showing visuals similar to the viral video.

Knowles said that the video is from the Pickles auction yard in the caption.

The Guardian carried the Knowles tweet in a report on April 29 where it was mentioned that a fire at the Pickles auction yard in Perth destroyed 60 vehicles. The report also quoted Jacey Knowles, who lives around the corner from the Bibra Lake branch, that “she was alerted of the fire when her two-year-old border collie, Basil, started barking.”

7News Australia also published a video report of the incident on April 29. It showed the same visuals and said that a blaze had broken out at an auction yard in Perth.

The incident was also reported by The West Australian and Sky News Australia.

Hence, we conclude that the viral video of the cars blazing is from Australia and has nothing to do with France or its recent riots.