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| - A video showing uniformed police personnel detaining a young man as people watch has gone viral on social media platforms, where people have claimed that it shows a person who was arrested for starting a fire amid the ongoing southern California wildfires.
The claim: Those sharing the video have claimed that it shows one Bhuvesh Patel, an Indian Hindu man, being arrested for starting one of the massive fires ravaging southern California.
It adds that Patel was allegedly carrying around a blowtorch to start another fire, in order to loot areas devastated by fires.
(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here, here, and here.)
Is it true?: No, neither is the person 'Bhuvesh Patel', nor is he an Indian national from the Hindu community.
The man in the video was identified as one 20-year-old Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva, reported to be a Mexican national.
How did we find out the truth?: We ran a reverse image search on the clip using Google Lens, which led us to an Instagram post, which mentioned that the arrest was made in the West Hills neighbourhood in California.
It also included the username of the person who shared the original post as 'reresellsvroomvrooms'.
The account mentioned belongs to one Renata Grinshpun, who had shared the video on 10 January 2025.
We looked for news reports about the arrest using the keywords 'West Hills man arrested'.
This took us to a report by The Independent, which said that the man arrested in connection to the Kenneth fire was not charged with arson, and carried a statement by Grinshpun as well.
It said that locals in the area had cornered and bound a man, who was allegedly spotted carrying a flamethrower, until the police arrived.
Grinshpun told the local news station that her neighbour had said that "he saw the guy behind a van, trying to light something on fire," when they called the police.
A second keyword search with 'Kenneth Fire' as an additional term led us to a Fox News report, which identified the man as one Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva, a Mexican national.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) shared a thread on X, about the arrest, mentioning that they "CANNOT confirm any connection to any fire by this suspect at the time."
Fox News' reporter also shared the same information in an X post, stating that the man was not charged with arson, but was still in police custody on a probation violation.
As on 14 January, the Kenneth fire, which spread over 1,052 acres of land, was fully contained, as per the website of California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Conclusion: A video of a Mexican national being arrested on suspicion of starting the Kenneth fire has gone viral with the false claim that it shows an Indian Hindu man named Bhuvesh Patel.
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