LA Wildfires Spawn Bizarre Claims
Plus: Doctored MSNBC Video Shows Anchors Joyful Over Ukrainian Deaths; ‘Fogvid-24’: A New Foggy Health Conspiracy
Welcome to Reality Check, your inside look at how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.
“The burden now falls on you to find sources of information you trust for reliable truth. That means better scrutinizing not only the publications you choose, but the individuals you follow on social media. That’s a lot to ask — but it’s the new necessity.” — Mike Allen, Axios, Jan. 8, 2025
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Today:
Social media invents false claims about Los Angeles wildfires
A news clip about elderly dancers is doctored to claim MSNBC mocked Ukrainian casualties
Ads for Samsung, Bloomingdale’s, and Capital One fund false bird flu claim
Seeing through the fog: Foggy conditions falsely linked to a purported new disease supposedly created as a bioweapon
And More …
Today’s newsletter was edited by Eric Effron and Sofia Rubinson.
1. From a Bogus Water Declaration to Jewish Space Lasers, California Wildfires Generate Falsehoods
By Nicole Dirks, Sarah Komar, and Macrina Wang

What happened: As fires raged through the Los Angeles region, wiping out neighborhood after neighborhood, bad actors capitalized on the tragedy, advancing a dizzying array of false claims.
A closer look: From outlandish claims that the fire was started by space lasers to political attacks relying on falsehoods, NewsGuard has so far identified nine false claims about the wildfires, among them:
Claim: President-elect Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that California Gov. Gavin Newsom “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California.” The claim went viral among conservative commentators.
Actually: Newsom did not refuse to sign a “water restoration declaration” because it never existed, California water policy experts told CNN (NewsGuard Trust Score: 80/100). Newsom’s office said in a Jan. 8 statement, “There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction.”
Claim: Los Angeles Fire Department aircraft were grounded due to President Joe Biden’s visit to southern California, a claim pushed by conservative influencers including Alex Jones.
Actually: Although firefighting aircraft were temporarily grounded during part of Biden’s visit, it was because of dangerous weather conditions, not presidential airspace restrictions, authorities explained.
Claim: A viral video (below) shows the LAFD desperately using women’s handbags to fight the flames, because the department’s resources went to “woke causes” and Ukraine.
Actually: The LAFD told TMZ (Trust Score: 64.5/100) that the bags seen in the viral video were canvas bags stored on fire engines because, according to the TMZ reporter, “it’s easier for [firefighters] to quickly fill the bags with water and extinguish the flames, than it is to haul out a hose.” Indeed, NewsGuard found that firefighter equipment retail websites commonly market canvas bags resembling those shown in the footage.
Claim: Los Angeles County fire hydrants ran out of water because the county refused to refill reservoirs, leading critics to directly blame Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for the fires. This claim was advanced on news sites including DailyTelegraph.co.nz (Trust Score: 15/100), ZeroHedge.com (Trust Score: 15/100), and ResistTheMainstream.com (Trust Score: 37/100).
Actually: A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power told fact-checking site VERIFY (Trust Score: 100/100) that on Jan. 6 — a day before the wildfires began — the department “filled all available water storage facility tanks (around 114 throughout the City), including three 1-million gallon tanks in the Palisades area.” Independent experts confirmed this account.
Claim: The wildfires were caused by directed-energy weapons, perhaps “Jewish space lasers,” a long-held conspiracy often advanced when wildfires break out. This narrative was mainly advanced by conspiracy-oriented social media accounts with modest followings.
Actually: While it is not yet known what ignited the fire, a combination of drought-like conditions and high-speed winds provided ripe conditions for a conflagration. Police arrested a suspect for attempting to light a fire in the city’s Woodland Hills neighborhood, but did not say this incident was related to the wildfires.
Reality Check members can access NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints for claims related to the California wildfires here.
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2. Pro-Kremlin Accounts Share Doctored MSNBC Clip Mocking Ukrainian Deaths

What happened: Pro-Russian social media users are sharing a purported MSNBC news clip during which anchors joke that Ukrainian men are “all dead” due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
In fact, the video is a mashup of unrelated broadcasts, including one about the elderly dance group “Senior Swifties.”
A closer look: The video begins with a report about Ukrainian refugees seeking asylum in the U.S. and then cuts to a panel of three newscasters, one of whom states: “I think I only saw one man and like 25 women. That is a lucky guy right there.” In response, a male panelist says, “They’re all dead,” eliciting laughter from the other two. A chyron at the bottom of the screen features an MSNBC logo stating, “UKRAINIAN REFUGEES DESPERATE FOR ENTRY INTO THE U.S.”
You can watch the video here:
The video spread widely among pro-Kremlin Telegram accounts in January 2025.
On Jan. 7, pro-Russian Telegram user @new_militarycolumnist shared the video and stated: “American journalists, while reporting on Ukrainian refugees, 100 thousand of whom the Biden administration promised to accept, openly laugh at the huge losses of the male population of Ukraine, whose representatives are forcibly sent to the front.” The post garnered 54,600 views in one day.
Pro-Kremlin Telegram account @sanya_florida_chat1 said in a channel with 16,660 members: “‘I saw one man for 25 women. They are all dead,’ the hosts discuss live on MSNBC to general laughter.”
Russian Facebook user Elena West posted the video on Jan. 7, 2025, with the caption: “American journalists, while reporting on Ukrainian refugees, 100 thousand of whom the Biden administration promised to take in, laugh frankly at the huge losses of Ukrainian male population, whose representatives are forcefully sent to the frontline.” The post appeared before Facebook announced the end of its limited fact-checking program.
Actually: The clip deceptively splices together two news broadcasts about entirely different topics.
The clip begins with an actual April 2023 MSNBC news report about Ukrainian asylum seekers in the United States.
The second part of the video shows a panel of anchors from Cincinnati CBS affiliate WKRC — not MSNBC. And the anchors were actually talking about footage of an elderly, predominately female dance group, called the “Senior Swifties,” performing a routine at their retirement home in Missouri. You can watch the real clip at this YouTube link, starting at 3:15:
Using reverse image search, NewsGuard identified the actual WKRC footage, posted on YouTube under the title “Funniest News Bloopers June 2024.” In that broadcast, local anchor Bob Herzog reacts to the footage of elderly dancers by quipping that the men in the group “are all dead.” Co-anchor Sheila Gray laughed, and third co-anchor Aleah Hordges replied by stating, “Oh, no. Maybe they just didn’t want to dance to Taylor Swift.”
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
3. Brand Victims of the Week: Ads for Samsung, Bloomingdale’s, and Capital One Fund False Claim that Bird Flu is a Hoax to Push Vaccines.
In this Reality Check feature, NewsGuard identifies global brands that support the spread of misinformation by unintentionally funneling programmatic advertising dollars to sites that repeatedly peddle false claims. Unless advertisers use inclusion or exclusion lists to place their programmatic ads, these ads will appear on websites regardless of their trustworthiness.
This week: A NewsGuard analyst based in the U.S. was shown programmatic ads for Samsung, Bloomingdale’s, and Capital One on an article published by SlayNews.com (Trust Score: 0/100). SlayNews.com is an anonymously-run conservative website that has repeatedly advanced false claims about health and vaccines. The January 2025 article claimed that bird flu is a hoax designed to encourage people to get vaccinated. However, bird flu, specifically the H5N1 virus, is a viral disease that has been around for three decades.
Representatives for Samsung, Bloomingdale’s, and Capital One did not immediately respond to NewsGuard’s emailed requests for comment.
(Disclosure: NewsGuard is among the companies that license data that would help advertisers only advertise on reliable, brand suitable news sites.)
If you see something, say something
If you see or hear something that you think may be provably false, please alert NewsGuard via realitycheck@newsguardtech.com and we'll do our best to get to the bottom of it. Note: Tips should not include content that you simply disagree with, however strongly.
4. ‘Fogvid-24’: Baseless Conspiracies Say Fog is Causing New Illness
By John Gregory and McKenzie Sadeghi
What happened: Conspiracy theorists rang in the New Year by creating a new fake disease: “Fogvid-24,” a mysterious illness that X users with millions of followers blamed on allegedly unnatural, “chemical fogs” potentially as a bioweapon.
A closer look: The claims emerged as regions of the U.S., Canada, and Europe started to report dense fog in late December 2024.
Flat Earth conspiracy theorist Mateus Marina said in a Dec. 29 TikTok video: “Nothing natural about [the fog] for me, people. … They’re doing this on purpose. Whatever is in that fog is making us sick.” The video amassed 2.7 million views in two days.
From there, the “Fogvid-24” claim spread on other platforms including X, Reddit, and Rumble. There have been 18,000 X posts mentioning “Fogvid” from Dec. 30 through Jan. 6, according to a social media analytics tool used by NewsGuard.
Foreign involvement: After many social media posters expressed concerns about “Fogvid-24,” foreign malign actors jumped into the act, as Russian, Iranian, and Chinese state media outlets began advancing baseless claims that the fog is linked to U.S. government-run bioweapons experiments.
“Reports of a chemical-smelling mist causing respiratory conditions are emerging, reminiscent of a 1950s biological warfare experiment when the US Navy intentionally dispersed bacteria off San Francisco,” Russian state-run RT (Trust Score: 20/100) stated in a Jan. 3 X post that generated 22,400 views. (The experiment mentioned is known as Operation Sea Spray, a U.S. Navy experiment in 1950 that studied the dispersal of biological agents by releasing bacteria off San Francisco’s coast.)
Between Dec. 27 and Jan. 7, there were approximately 100 mentions of “Operation Sea Spray” in Russian, Iranian, and Chinese state media, according to a social media analytics tool used by NewsGuard.
Actually: Weather experts say that the supposed “chemical fog” was normal, naturally occurring fog.
Lauren Kreidler, a meteorologist for CBS affiliate WINK-TV in Fort Meyers, Florida, refuted claims that the fog was unnatural in a Dec. 30 video on X. “That is simply fog,” she said. “Fog is a natural phenomenon, not a conspiracy, and it consists of just water droplets that are suspended in the air, but relatively closer to the ground.”
Paul Sirvatka, a professor of meteorology at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, told NewsGuard that the fog being cited by social media posts is not unusual. “Given the lack of cyclones across the central U.S. recently, and a fairly inactive jet stream, fog is an easy to forecast by-product,” Sirvatka said.
Reality Check is produced by Co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
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