Wild Claims About L.A. Wildfires Get Millions of Views
NewsGuard has identified and debunked 18 false claims related to the wildfires
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Special Edition: The California Fires
Today’s newsletter was edited by Eric Effron and Sofia Rubinson.
Misinformation Surges Amid the California Wildfires
By Eva Maitland, Nicole Dirks, Sarah Komar, Charlene Lin, Macrina Wang, and Sam Howard
As soon as the first wildfires broke out in the Los Angeles hills on Jan. 7, false claims and conspiracy theories about the disaster emerged, with some gaining millions of views online, including on increasingly fact-agnostic social media. With the conflagration now in its ninth day, NewsGuard has identified and debunked 18 false claims, with no end in sight to the fires or the misinformation about them.
In this special edition of Reality Check, we are providing summaries of some of the most viral claims relating to the wildfires. Our Tracker will be updated in real time, so check back often if you want to make sure you are informed — not misinformed — about these fires.
Also, as a public service, NewsGuard is providing, free of charge, a catalog of these false narratives from our proprietary database of Misinformation Fingerprints, which offers detailed descriptions of provably false narratives spreading online and the facts debunking the claim. Click to access our 2025 Southern California Wildfire Misinformation Tracker. And feel free to share them.
Russian false claim: Ukrainian military officials owned eight mansions that burned down in the wildfires.

Details: Pro-Kremlin sources are citing a fabricated video — styled as a news report from United24, a Ukrainian state-run news outlet — claiming that eight Ukrainian military officials owned mansions in Southern California that were lost in the California wildfires. In fact, there is no evidence that any Ukrainian officials owned homes in the region, much less that they lost homes in the fires.
You can watch the video here:
The video features footage of the wildfires and overlaid text stating: “Eight mansions owned by Ukrainian military officials burned down in wildfires in Los Angeles. The total value of the destroyed property reaches about $90 million. The mansions were acquired between April 2022 and February 2024 and were owned by members of [former Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief] Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s team.”
Actually: United24 told NewsGuard in an email, “The video is fake.”
Hidden agenda: The false narrative, which included the baseless claim that the mansions were bought by the Ukrainian officials with stolen Western aid, appears to be part of a Russian disinformation campaign to undermine support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Even more bizarre claim, 4.2 million views: The wildfires were part of a plot by California officials, the State Farm insurance company, and the Democratic elite to destroy child-trafficking tunnels beneath the Pacific Palisades.

Details: Conspiracy-oriented social media users are baselessly claiming that officials including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Farm insurance’s CEO Jon Farney, and Hollywood elites conspired to ignite the fires to cover up tunnels allegedly built beneath Los Angeles used to traffic children.
In a post that generated 4.2 million views and 26,000 likes, X account @AmericazOutlaw first advanced the claim on Jan. 9: “Well placed sources have said that the [fires] are actually being used to destroy the child trafficking tunnels under the Pacific Palisades, all the way to the Playboy Mansion, before Trump gets into office” and that the “CEO of State Farm & other Insurance companies, Los Angeles Fire Chief, LA Mayor Karen Bass, even CA Governor Gavin Newsom” all played a role.
Actually: These claims are being pushed by some of the same pro-QAnon accounts that advanced the discredited “Pizzagate” conspiracy that posited that Democrats were running a child-trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C. pizza restaurant.

Digging deeper: Other conspiracy-oriented social media users and sites made similar claims about child-trafficking tunnels beneath the famous Getty Villa art museum, which they falsely claimed was destroyed in the fires. (As of Jan. 15, the museum had escaped damage.)
Steven Kelley, an analyst for Russian state media outlet RT, appears to be the originator of the claim about the child-trafficking tunnels under the Getty Museum, which he first published in a 2011 book. Asked by USA Today (NewsGuard Trust Score: 100/100) in November 2022 what evidence he had to back the allegation, Kelley said that a psychic had told him about “an underground facility” at the Getty Villa that the psychic visited remotely using “astral projection.” He did not provide tangible evidence to support his claim.
False “dancing” claim: A viral video shows foreigners dancing in celebration as Los Angeles burns in the background.

Details: A video that spread among right-leaning social media users purports to show unidentified foreigners dancing in a building, while the California wildfires are visible outside the window. You can watch the video here:
Far-right X account @meantweeting1 posted the video on Jan. 13 captioned, “Democrats have let in millions of leaches that hate America!” The post received 529,000 views and 4,500 likes.
Stew Peters, a far-right commentator who frequently posts anti-Jewish content, posted the video on Jan. 13 with the caption, “There’s always ONE group that seems to be dancing during every American tragedy.” The post received 1.7 million views and 15,000 likes.
X account @RadioGenoa, which frequently posts anti-immigrant content, posted the video on Jan. 13 alongside the text, “An Arab group happily dances to Arabic music as they watch their neighbors’ homes burn in the Los Angeles fires.” The post garnered nearly 100,000 views.
Actually: The video was filmed in Switzerland, not California.
The clip was originally posted to TikTok by user @dodon_66 on Dec. 23 — two weeks before the California wildfires commenced — captioned, “#svizzera,” which is Italian for “Switzerland.”
The fire in the background was at the “Badhütte Rorschach,” a bathing house in Rorschach, Switzerland, which burned down on Dec. 23.
False DEI claim: The L.A. Fire Department chief said her top priority is diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Details: This claim spread among U.S. conservative and Chinese social media users, including TrendingPoliticsNews.com (Trust Score: 39.5/100) founder Collin Rugg, who said in an X post with 950,000 views: “Actor James Woods rips DEI lesbian LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley for focusing on DEI instead of keeping people safe from fires. Crowley previously said DEI was her top ‘priority.’”
Actually: LAFD Fire Chief Kristin Crowley never said that DEI was her “top priority.”
A NewsGuard search of Crowley’s public appearances did not return any results of her stating that DEI was her top priority, or that it was a higher priority than effectively fighting fires. No credible news outlet has reported that Crowley ever made such a comment.
It’s true that actor James Woods made such a claim, but he did not provide any evidence that she made such a comment, and no evidence has emerged.
Taylor Swift claim: A video shows the pop star saying the wildfires were “divine retribution” for U.S. actions in Gaza.

Details: A video that spread among pro-Palestinian social media users supposedly shows Taylor Swift on a late-night show stating that California’s wildfires are a “divine retribution” for U.S. support of Israel. You can watch the video here:
Actually: A real video of Swift was overlaid with an AI-generated audio.
The video was taken from a November 2021 appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” during which she discussed the re-release of her album RED, not the Middle East.
Some 13 seconds into the audio, the voice warps, and Swift suddenly adopts a British accent. In other instances, the voice has a robotic, AI-like quality.
Favoritism claim: FEMA paid for 100 percent of the immediate recovery efforts for the California wildfires, but did not do so in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.

Details: Some social media users are claiming that the federal government is providing full assistance to California, a Democrat-run state, and neglected to do the same for Republican-run North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
On Jan. 10, conservative X account @EndWokeness stated, “Why is the gov paying for 100% of the damage in California but not in North Carolina?” The post received 2.7 million views and 91,000 likes.
Actually: In both cases, the Biden administration said the federal government would fund 100 percent of debris removal from public spaces and emergency protective measures for a 180-day period.
Read all the hoaxes: These are just a sampling. As noted, NewsGuard is providing a free catalog of false narratives relating to the wildfires in our 2025 Southern California Wildfire Misinformation Tracking Center.
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