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Claim: Threads user @thetabama shares a video on how a man accidentally started the Los Angeles fire.
Verdict: FALSE! Our findings reveal that the video is unrelated, as it appeared online in December 2024 before the wildfire started.
Full Text
The Palisades Fire in Los Angeles (LA) erupted on Jan 7, 2025, and its cause is still being investigated. Preliminary evidence suggests a potential link to a smaller fire that occurred just six days earlier on New Year’s Day, which residents reported as being started by fireworks.
Amidst this, a Thread user, @thetabama, posted a video on Jan 9, 2025, allegedly showing how the fire started in LA. The video shows a man on grass, using a golf stick with a smaller fire to start a bigger one.
The video, which has now gone viral, was also shared on Instagram, X, Facebook, and YouTube, amassing over a thousand likes and 84 shares since it was posted on Jan. 10, 2025.
The virality of the post and public interest made DUBAWA verify it.
Verification
Using Google Lens to analyse frames from the video, we discovered that the footage had already appeared online in 2024, before the start of the fire.
Further investigation revealed an earlier instance of the video uploaded to YouTube on Dec 18, 2024.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Palisades fire broke out on Jan 7, 2025, at 10:30 a.m. amid dangerously high winds and dry conditions, leaving dry vegetation primed to burn. In a matter of days, the fire has consumed more than 17,000 acres.
Officials say more than 5,000 homes, businesses, and other buildings have been destroyed, according to preliminary estimates.
The timeline established by the earlier upload date provides clear evidence that the video predates the incident; hence, it is not linked to the LA fire.
Conclusion
The viral video of a man playing golf with fire used to depict how the LA fire started is false. The video dates back to December 2024, before the incident occurred.
