Fact Check: Edmonton Man Did NOT Fight Fires In Ukraine -- It's Ukrainian In Donated Gear

Fact Check

  • by: Marlo Lee
Fact Check: Edmonton Man Did NOT Fight Fires In Ukraine -- It's Ukrainian In Donated Gear Donated Gear

Was a Canadian firefighter spotted putting out a fire in Ukraine during the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict? No, that's not true: That was a Ukrainian firefighter wearing donated firefighter gear from Edmonton, a city in Alberta, Canada. Kevin Royle, the project director for the aid group Firefighter Aid Ukraine, confirmed that the bunker gear was donated by the group.

The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) on March 27, 2022. It opens:

Things are getting so bad in Ukraine that Edmonton firefighters are on the scene.

🤣🤣🤣 CNN you never fail to deliver...comedy that is.

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

Screen Shot 2022-03-28 at 10.09.05 AM.png

Facebook screenshot(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Mar 28 14:10:36 2022 UTC)

Firefighter Aid Ukraine posted about donating the equipment on its Facebook page on March 26, 2022:

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Mar 28 18:12 2022 UTC)

Royle was quoted about this in an article in CityNews, a Canadian news website, on March 27, 2022:

The group has been donating equipment and gear to Ukraine for nearly a decade now.

'It's unfortunate it's being used because of the conflict, but it's impressive to see it there,' he said.

Other Lead Stories fact checks related to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict can be found here.

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Marlo Lee is a fact checker at Lead Stories. She is a graduate of Howard University with a B.S. in Biology. Her interest in fact checking started in college, when she realized how important it became in American politics. She lives in Maryland.

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