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| - Fact Check: Old images of US forest fires passed off as crisis in Uttarakhand
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that most photos used in the viral post are unrelated and old.
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India Today Fact Check
The pictures are old and not related to this year's forest fires in Uttarakhand, which are mostly sporadic.
Social media is full of frightening pictures of forest fires, with users claiming they are from Uttarakhand. Some have even compared the fires with those in Amazon and Australia.
Several Facebook users and pages such as "Vivek Raj" and "Incredible India" have shared images of inferno in forests and claimed that this is the present situation in Uttarakhand. The archived versions can be seen here and here.
"UTTARAKHAND IS BURNING!! No media is reporting and nobody seems to be bothered about this issue. When fire broke out in Australia and Amazon we were saddened and now 51.35 hectares plus is burning nobody seems to be bothered !!" Facebook user "Vivek Raj" wrote along with the photos.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that most photos used in the viral post are unrelated and old. Some are not even from India. As per the forest department's assessment, the fires in Uttarakhand are sporadic and not as severe as last year.
Using reverse image search on each of the images, we traced their origin.
Viral image 1
This picture was first used in 2013 by several news websites while reporting about a wildfire in California's Yosemite Valley. On August 31, 2013, in an article by "NBC News" on Yosemite Valley wildfire, this picture was used with the caption, "The Rim Fire burns at night near Yosemite National Park, California, in an undated Forest Service photo released Friday."
The archived version of the news article can be seen here.
Viral image 2
This image is 17 years old. It was captured by "Reuters" news agency near Dwarahat village in Uttarakhand in 2003. The state was then known as Uttaranchal. The caption reads, "A forest fire rages near the village of Dwarahat in north India's Uttaranchal state, June 5, 2003. 05 Jun 2003 REUTERS/Stringer/india."
The archived version of the original picture can be seen here.
Viral image 3
This 13 years old picture is from San Bernardino national forest in Southern California. We found this picture on the website of "Getty Images". As per the caption, the photo was taken on September 18, 2007, when a massive fire engulfed the 15,433-acre forest area, leading to evacuation of hundreds of people from nearby places.
Viral image 4
We found this image on the website of "Adobe Stock". This picture was originally taken by photographer Mike Stone of "Reuters" in 2011. This was a wildfire in Bastrop, Texas, US.
The photo caption reads, "Flames engulf a road near Bastrop State Park as a wildfire burns out of control near Bastrop, Texas September 5, 2011. An estimated 1,000 homes are being threatened in Bastrop County, just east of Austin, as a 14,000-acre (5700-hectare) wildfire rages out of control, causing evacuations."
What Uttarakhand govt says
The Uttarakhand forest department, on its Facebook page, has alerted about misleading images being linked to the recent forest fire.
Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has tweeted saying old and unrelated images are being circulated in the name of Uttarakhand forest fire. Using a graph of the forest department comparing this year's forest fire with 2019, Rawat said it is way less compared to last year.
A misleading propaganda, using old pics of forest fires of 2016 & 2019 & that of forest fires in Chilean & Chinese forests, is raging on SM. I req everyone to not believe such motivated campaign. Fire incidents reported until yesterday is way less than PYhttps://t.co/d5R4aq5mjW — Trivendra Singh Rawat (@tsrawatbjp) May 27, 2020
Hence, among the four viral images, three are from different wildfires in the US. The viral claim comparing the recent Uttarakhand forest fires with those in Amazon and Australia is also misleading.
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