Does an authentic photo show a California fire hydrant painted rainbow-colored with a January 2025 wildfire burning in the background? No, that's not true: The image was posted by a self-described satire account. Plus, the image was generated using AI, as evidenced by the Grok logo in the bottom right corner.
The image appeared in a post (archived here) on Instagram on January 9, 2025. The caption read:
Thank goodness, the River city fire department painted fire hydrants in River city in a paint scheme that can grab the attention of anyone needing to get to a fire hydrant quickly. We do believe that our fire hydrants are saving lives in the fire is affecting our community right now.
Chief Sharris (they/them)
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Fri Jan 10 10:26:04 2025 UTC)
The post was made by an account labeled River City PD. It is a self-described satire account, as can be seen here (archived here). The page includes the following disclaimer: "Satire page. River City Police is a fictional city that the California POST uses to depict in training videos."
Also, the image was generated using AI, as evidenced by the Grok logo in the bottom right corner.
Grok, part of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI, allows users to generate images from text.
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Other Lead Stories claims about the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles can be seen here.
