Does a viral clip offer proof that the January 2025 California wildfires followed the same path as the planned California high-speed rail system? No, that's not true: The clip repeated a recycled falsehood. It showed a 2018 map that depicted areas in the red flag warning zone of increased risk, not actual fires.
The claim reappeared in a post (archived here) on Instagram on January 14, 2025. It said:
Gives your a different perspective on the #LAFires and just #Wildfires in general. #californiafires what do you think about this video?
The post shared a video with the following title:
California 'wildfires' line up
EXACTLY
in the same path as the
'California High Speed Rail System'
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Wed Jan 22 16:57:40 2025 UTC)
The post implied that the top map in the video authentically showed a series of January 2025 California wildfires that began on January 7 (archived here).
However, neither the claim nor the map was brand-new: Both have been circulating since 2018.
The map
The map was originally posted online by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in November 2018 (archived here). It didn't show the locations of actual fires. The map's description read:
A #RedFlagWarning has significantly increased in size, now spanning across California through Monday, due to gusty winds and low humidity. This is #CriticalFireWeather and precautions should be taken when outdoors to avoid any potential sparks.
A "red flag warning" is issued by the National Weather Service. According to the agency's website (archived here), it "means warm temperatures, very low humidities, and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger."
The high-speed rail system
Since 2018 (archived here), the map has been taken out of context in numerous posts spreading an unsupported narrative of a purported connection between the path of wildfires and the outline of the high-speed rail system.
The official project's page (archived here), which shows what the rail system will look like when completed, reads that it:
will eventually encompass over 800 miles of rail, with up to 24 stations. Because the project is so large, and will run through areas of the state with extremely different geographical, environmental and economic issues, the project has been broken into ten separate sections.
Construction of the California high-speed rail system started in 2015 (archived here), almost 10 years before the January 2025 wildfires, and it's still a work in progress.
Read more
Previously, Lead Stories wrote that the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires were not part of the "smart city" project.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires can be found here.
