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| - On Jan. 9, 2025, as damaging wildfires raged in Los Angeles, a picture (archived) and a video (archived), both claiming to show flames reaching the historic Hollywood sign, circulated online.
(@valueandtime/X)
Examples of both were quickly shared across social media and seen thousands of times. One early posting (archived) of the video gathered more than 100,000 views before it was taken down. Snopes readers also contacted us to ask if the visuals were genuine.
However, both visuals are fake. The image carries a Grok watermark in the bottom-right corner, as seen in the post above, indicating that it was made using X's artificial intelligence (AI) model. The video likely originated from a TikTok account with a history of producing digital art. We have reached out to the user to confirm how this video was generated and will update this report when we get a response. According to Cal Fire and the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), the Sunset Fire was at least three miles away from the Hollywood sign as of the morning of Jan. 9.
Hollywoodsign.org, a website that runs a live webcam pointed at the sign, said over email on Jan. 9 that: "Griffith Park is temporarily closed as a safety precaution, but the Sign itself is not affected and is secure — and the cameras will slowly but surely come back up."
Given the watermark on the circulating photo, we asked Grok "Did you make this image?" After first denying having made it, the model then noted the watermark and gave the verdict that the image was fake.
No, I did not make this photo. This image is an AI-generated depiction of the Hollywood sign on fire, as indicated by the "GROK XI" watermark in the bottom right corner. It's important to note that this image is fake; the Hollywood sign is not actually on fire.
As for the video (archived), the oldest version we could find was the account describing itself as: "artist , graphics ,video scenes." The account has a history of posting obviously digital art. We have reached out to the user to confirm whether this video is also digitally generated.
We found no official reports that wildfire flames had reached the Hollywood sign as of this writing. The nearest wildfire, the Sunrise fire, was located around three miles from the sign, according to an LAFD update on Jan. 9. Though the fire was not contained, the Mandatory Evacuation Zone established on Jan. 8 had been largely lifted, apart from a defined area, which remained closed.
A map of the fire produced by Cal Fire also showed some distance between the Sunset fire and the Hollywood sign, located within Griffith Park, and no other fires in the immediate area.
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