Does a video show helicopters taking Mexican firefighters to help in Los Angeles wildfire relief efforts in January 2025, as a social media post implied? No, that's not true: Spokespeople for the Los Angeles Fire Department and the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection both denied that Mexico sent air resources to combat the wildfires there. Forestry & Fire Protection also said that while Mexican firefighters did help fight blazes in Los Angeles, they did not arrive on helicopters, as implied in the video. Reports from news outlets said the Mexican firefighters arrived by airplane.
The claim appeared in a post and video (archived here) on Instagram on January 10, 2025. It opened:
100 Firefighters from #Mexico have arrived in #LosAngeles and being directed to the #EatonFire .. Gracias Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo 🇲🇽
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Wed Jan 15 20:33:12 2025 UTC)
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) told Lead Stories in a phone interview on January 15, 2025, that Mexico did send firefighters but did not send helicopters.
Unlike the post's claim that 100 Mexican firefighters were sent, the actual number is closer to 70, according to a California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (Cal Fire) spokesperson in an email on January 15, 2025:
Can confirm that there are no Mexican air resources assigned to the Southern California incidents. There are approximately 70 firefighters from Mexico assigned to the Southern California fires.
In response to another inquiry from Lead Stories, the Cal Fire spokesperson responded on January 16, 2025, with:
No, they did not arrive on helicopters as shown in the video.
The Mexican firefighters were seen arriving by airplane in a video posted on YouTube by The Associated Press on January 12, 2025. The same information was also reported by The Guardian and NBC Los Angeles. Lead Stories did not find reports of the supposed Mexican helicopters being allocated to combat the wildfires.
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Additional Lead Stories fact checks on claims concerning wildfires can be found here. Articles about the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires are here.
