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  • 2020-06-05 (xsd:date)
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  • These photos have circulated online as early as 2016 (en)
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  • Five photos have been shared in multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter alongside a claim that they show raging fires in India's mountainous state of Uttarakhand . These claims are false; the photos have circulated online as early as 2016 in reports about other fires. Uttarakhand officials also say there have been no major fires recently and called the claims misleading. The photos were published here on Facebook on May 27, 2020. A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post taken on June 3, 2020 The post reads, in part: This is heartbreaking to see, Fire broke out in jungle of Uttrakhand. Huge area burnt down to ashes. More than India's Half of Bird's species are in danger. Amazon and Australia incident saddened us, but when our own Uttrakhand is burning since last 4 days, we are silent... How many of us are aware that our Uttrakhand is burning again for last few days. The photos were also shared here , here , here and here on Facebook; and here , here , here and here on Twitter alongside similar claims. The claims are false; the images have circulated online since 2016 in reports about other fires. First photo A reverse Google image search of the first photo in the misleading post led to this January 25, 2020 article about forest fires in India published by the Indian news website The Wire. A screenshot of The Wire article The same photo is published in report and is captioned: Forest fire being extinguished by bush beating, Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh. Photo: UP forest department Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading post (L) and the photo in The Wire’s report (R): Image comparing screenshots Second and third photos The second and third photos in the misleading post are identical. Below is a screenshot comparison of the two, labelled (2) and (3) by AFP: Image comparing screenshots A reverse image search of the photo found it was previously published in this article by the Indian news website Scroll.in about a forest fire in Uttarakhand on May 2, 2016. A screenshot of the Scroll.in article The report credits the photo to Anup Sah, who also published the photo on Facebook here in April 2016. Below is are screenshot comparisons between the second (L) and third (C) photos in the misleading post and the photo on Sah’s Facebook page (R): Image comparing screenshots Fourth photo A reverse image search of the fourth photo found it was published here on the Indian news website The Logical Indian on April 30, 2016 . The report reads, in part: A massive wildfire has been burning in the forest of Garhwal region of Uttarakhand which has gutted around 1,600 hectares of forest land... Fortunately no casualties have been reported till now. Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading posts (L) and The Logical Indian photo (R): Image comparing screenshots Fifth photo A separate reverse image search found the fifth photo published here by Getty Images on September 18, 2017. A screenshot of the Getty Images website taken on June 4, 2020 The photo description reads, in part: Wildfire Continues To Burn In San Bernardino National Forest / The Butler 2 Fire burns through the early morning hours on September 18, 2007 near Fawnskin, California...(Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Below is a screenshot comparison between the fifth photo in the misleading post (L) and the Getty Images photo: Image comparing screenshots Uttarakhand officials also denied the claims. According to this May 27, 2020 report by Indian newspaper Mumbai Mirror, the chief conservator at Uttarakhand’s forest department, Parag Madhukar Dhakate, said: There are no massive forest fires in Uttarakhand. Some videos and pictures doing round on social media are from South India and other parts of the globe. People have created their own collage of pictures on social media...Some pictures are even from 2016. Uttarakhand’s chief minister Trivendra Rawat labelled the misleading social media posts as misleading propaganda in this tweet published on May 27, 2020. A misleading propaganda, using old pics of forest fires of 2016 & 2019 & that of forest fires in Chilean & Chinese forests, is raging on SM. I req everyone to not believe such motivated campaign. Fire incidents reported until yesterday is way less than PY https://t.co/d5R4aq5mjW — Trivendra Singh Rawat (@tsrawatbjp) May 27, 2020 (en)
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