Wildfire

Does a video prove Bill Gates suggested destroying agricultural land? No, that's not true: A convoluted post on social media cut out portions of Gates' response to a question, changing the context of what he said. The edited clip of Gates speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., in 2019 was merged with an unrelated video showing cattle running…

Was "80 percent of Texas' cattle grazing land" destroyed in the 2024 wildfires burning across the Texas Panhandle, as is claimed in a post and video on Instagram? No, that's not true: As of this writing, more than 1.2 million acres have been burned in the state in four active fires in the Texas Panhandle, which contains less than 10…

Did Joe Biden let slip that there is a "right roof" with a certain color that will protect a home from being destroyed by lasers or directed energy weapons during wildfires as some conspiracists suggest? No, that's not true: In a video clip of Joe Biden speaking in Brownsville, Texas, he does say how in the aftermath of a wildfire…

Does a viral video of a "green laser" authentically show a beam igniting a Texas wildfire that started in late February 2024? No, that's not true: The clip was posted two months before the blaze. It was first published in a social media account of a person describing themselves as a "video creator" who made no references to Texas…

Was "The Rock" booed in Las Vegas for failing to help the victims of the wildfires in Maui? No, that's not true: The video of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is from a WWE event where he was playing a bad character, and the audience was chanting for his opponent. The video had nothing to do with the August 2023 Maui…

Did comedian Ellen DeGeneres and actor Tom Hanks pledge to move abroad if Donald Trump is elected president in 2024? No, that's not true: No credible news outlets have reported that. The claim was promoted, among others, by an online store selling T-shirts, a meme website and a parody account -- not by the official websites or social media accounts…

Were the 2023 Maui wildfires started because the island holds 120 million tons of lithium? No, that's not true: A U.S. Geological Survey representative and an associate professor emeritus of geology both said there is no evidence that there is that much lithium in Maui or throughout the Hawaiian islands. Lithium is mainly found in Australia, South America and Nevada,…

Does a social-media video show a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "concentration camp" in Hawaii? No, this is not true: This video, according to a FEMA spokesperson, shows a project with which FEMA is not affiliated at all. The project built tiny homes for homeless and at-risk U.S. veterans. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook published…

Did the United States transfer $6 billion to Ukraine by mistake? No, that's not true: In the summer of 2023, the Pentagon admitted that it overestimated the value of military gear sent to Ukraine due to an accounting mistake but the money was not misspent or even spent. It is still there as of this writing and will be used…

Does a video shared to social media in September 2023 show Maui residents "being arrested for camping on the beach with nowhere to go" following the destructive wildfires that killed at least 115 people? No, that's not true: The video in question was filmed in 1985 as part of a documentary showcasing a group of houseless native Hawaiians in the…