Does a video show fenced-in elk escaping a wildfire in Wyoming in 2024? No, that's not true: The video on X shows three elk fleeing a wildfire in Montana in 2021. The person who made the video located it in Big Horn County, Montana, in a 2021 Facebook post.
The video appeared in a post (archived here) on X on October 8, 2024. The caption opened:
🚨#BREAKING: Half of Wyoming is BURNING right now!
I bet you didn't hear a peep about it, did you?
⚠️You'll never guess what they're going after now!
⚠️Nearly 73,000 acres of the Bighorn National Forest are now on fire.
'The previous largest fire recorded in the forest's 100-year history topped out at around 18,000 acres and took weeks to grow that size. Over the weekend, the Elk Fire grew more than 25,000 acres IN A MATTER OF HOURS.'
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Oct 9 16:41:59 2024 UTC)
A Google News search (archived here) using the exact quote in the post on X produced two credible news media articles that cite different portions of the quote. These two October 7, 2024, articles -- from the Oil City News and the Billings Gazette -- reported that a wildfire was burning in a forest in Wyoming -- but neither article included the video or still images of the three elk fleeing a fire.
A Google search (archived here) using a combination of keywords used in the post and listing what is seen in the video in the post -- "three elk behind a fence in the Bighorn National Forest wildfire in 2024" -- produced a link to an August 2, 2021, Facebook post (archived here) on the verified Facebook account of RFD-TV, the flagship network for Rural Media Group. Beside the exact video seen in the post of three elk escaping wildfire behind a fence, the caption reads:
'This incredible video was captured in Big Horn county, Montana of a Elk high fence operation that unfortunately was a victim of a Wildfire. The Elk did make it out safe, although many others lost pastures and animals.'
Right now, more than 90 wildfires are burning across the U.S. Thank you to all of the firefighters and volunteers putting their lives on the line to battle these fires.
Chris Sharpe/@muley_pursuit
A search of the Facebook account of Chris Sharpe, who is in Big Horn, Montana, revealed a July 30, 2021, post (archived here) featuring the exact video seen in the post on X. His caption reads:
BIG HORN COUNTY, MONTANA. The elk did make it out safe. (Cutting the fence would have scared the elk and deer into the fire more. We had people walking along the fence to help push them into the safe place)
Lead Stories also found his video on the Storyful video website, here (archived here) under the title "Elk Trapped Against Fence Line Flee PF Fire in Montana." It was published on August 2, 2021, and the location listed is Big Horn County, Montana.
Lead Stories also located an August 3, 2021, Facebook post (archived here) on the verified Facebook account of CBS News that shows the same video attributed to Sharpe via Storyful. The caption of this post reads:
A trio of elk ran along a fence line in an attempt to flee from the PF Fire in Montana's Big Horn County. The blaze has scorched more than 65,000 acres but is 80% contained.
