VERIFY: Why you'll sometimes still see trees around towns destroyed by wildfires
Some have questioned why buildings will be destroyed in a place ravaged by wildfire but living trees remain. Tree adaptation is one reason.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/tre...2c72b15617
Why did you post this without posting what you think caused the fires? As usual, the simpler explanations are the more credible ones.
REUTERS FACT CHECKAUGUST 31, 2020 / 8:47 AM / 5 MONTHS AGO
Fact check: California wildfires were not caused by “powerful lasers”
5 MIN READ
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-...SKBN25R1VH
Social media users have been sharing content online that claims the wildfires in California are caused by powerful lasers. The claims include four photographs of explosions and fires from unrelated events.
Examples can be seen here and here . The posts read: “All of these images were captured during the wildfires in California. Is this evidence that powerful lasers were used to cause these fires?”
California has been battling with major fires which were started with lighting from dry thunderstorms.
As of August 28, 2020, the state of California has reported that: “Since the lightning siege that started on Saturday, August 15, 2020, there have been nearly 14,000 lightning strikes.” The officials added that in this time, there have been over 700 new wildfires covering 1.38 million acres. ( here )
The worst of the blazes, including the second and third largest wildfires in recorded California history, were burning in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, where more than 200,000 people have been told to flee their homes ( here ).
California fire conspiracy theories have been around since 2018. They include the ideas the fires are caused by huge lasers, and that aliens or the United States government are igniting them ( here , here ). Business Insider addressed these theories here .
The photograph on the left shows the Falcon 9 rocket launch by Elon Musk’s SpaceX on May 22, 2018, not the current wildfires ( here ).
he lower photograph in the middle column shows a forest fire in California that took place on May 24, 2018, not 2020 ( here ). The description on the Twitter post by Klamath National Forest reads: “Good Morning. Here is a photo of the Noland Fire, discovered earlier this morning near Carter Summit on the Salmon/Scott Ranger District. Fire suppression resources are currently walking in to this incident.”
Reuters was unable to independently verify the upper photograph in the middle column, but the only media report featuring this image Reuters was able to find was from the Express, claiming it shows a meteor bursting over Michigan in January 2018 ( here ).
The video the screenshotted image is credited to has been deleted from YouTube ( here ). The event was covered by other news organizations but they do not feature the image in the claim ( here , here and here ).
The photograph on the right is featured on multiple blogs and posts discussing the conspiracy theories around the Woolsey fires that started in California on November 8, 2018
(steemit.com/dew/@raygano/breaking-news-woolsey-fire-evidence-of-directed-energy-weapons).
Reuters was unable to verify this photograph or find its original source, but it does not stem from the fires in 2020. More information about the Woolsey fires can be found here .
All four of the photographs are from 2018 and do not show the 2020 California fires that were started by lightning from dry thunderstorms ( here ), not lasers.
VERDICT
False. The claim stems from a 2018 conspiracy theory about California fires.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Social media users have been sharing content online that claims the wildfires in California are caused by powerful lasers. The claims include four photographs of explosions and fires from unrelated events
The Camp fire was sparked by PG&E electrical equipment, some of which was nearly 100 years old. The company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter last June.
“If a Jewish laser was able to accurately target the rusted-out, 100-year-old transmission tower that caused the fire, what a good shot they were. It was a hell of a good shot,” Lee Houskeeper, a media consultant for a law firm that represented scores of Camp fire victims in lawsuits against PG&E, told The Times, sarcastically.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021...a-wildfire
Some have questioned why buildings will be destroyed in a place ravaged by wildfire but living trees remain. Tree adaptation is one reason.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/tre...2c72b15617
Why did you post this without posting what you think caused the fires? As usual, the simpler explanations are the more credible ones.
Quote:reindeer So refrigerators melt, car wheels melt yet leaves on tress right next to the houses don't burn? Hey a wild fire is winds blowing, leaves still on trees next to some of the houses?
REUTERS FACT CHECKAUGUST 31, 2020 / 8:47 AM / 5 MONTHS AGO
Fact check: California wildfires were not caused by “powerful lasers”
5 MIN READ
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-...SKBN25R1VH
Social media users have been sharing content online that claims the wildfires in California are caused by powerful lasers. The claims include four photographs of explosions and fires from unrelated events.
Examples can be seen here and here . The posts read: “All of these images were captured during the wildfires in California. Is this evidence that powerful lasers were used to cause these fires?”
California has been battling with major fires which were started with lighting from dry thunderstorms.
As of August 28, 2020, the state of California has reported that: “Since the lightning siege that started on Saturday, August 15, 2020, there have been nearly 14,000 lightning strikes.” The officials added that in this time, there have been over 700 new wildfires covering 1.38 million acres. ( here )
The worst of the blazes, including the second and third largest wildfires in recorded California history, were burning in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, where more than 200,000 people have been told to flee their homes ( here ).
California fire conspiracy theories have been around since 2018. They include the ideas the fires are caused by huge lasers, and that aliens or the United States government are igniting them ( here , here ). Business Insider addressed these theories here .
The photograph on the left shows the Falcon 9 rocket launch by Elon Musk’s SpaceX on May 22, 2018, not the current wildfires ( here ).
he lower photograph in the middle column shows a forest fire in California that took place on May 24, 2018, not 2020 ( here ). The description on the Twitter post by Klamath National Forest reads: “Good Morning. Here is a photo of the Noland Fire, discovered earlier this morning near Carter Summit on the Salmon/Scott Ranger District. Fire suppression resources are currently walking in to this incident.”
Reuters was unable to independently verify the upper photograph in the middle column, but the only media report featuring this image Reuters was able to find was from the Express, claiming it shows a meteor bursting over Michigan in January 2018 ( here ).
The video the screenshotted image is credited to has been deleted from YouTube ( here ). The event was covered by other news organizations but they do not feature the image in the claim ( here , here and here ).
The photograph on the right is featured on multiple blogs and posts discussing the conspiracy theories around the Woolsey fires that started in California on November 8, 2018
(steemit.com/dew/@raygano/breaking-news-woolsey-fire-evidence-of-directed-energy-weapons).
Reuters was unable to verify this photograph or find its original source, but it does not stem from the fires in 2020. More information about the Woolsey fires can be found here .
All four of the photographs are from 2018 and do not show the 2020 California fires that were started by lightning from dry thunderstorms ( here ), not lasers.
VERDICT
False. The claim stems from a 2018 conspiracy theory about California fires.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Social media users have been sharing content online that claims the wildfires in California are caused by powerful lasers. The claims include four photographs of explosions and fires from unrelated events
The Camp fire was sparked by PG&E electrical equipment, some of which was nearly 100 years old. The company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter last June.
“If a Jewish laser was able to accurately target the rusted-out, 100-year-old transmission tower that caused the fire, what a good shot they were. It was a hell of a good shot,” Lee Houskeeper, a media consultant for a law firm that represented scores of Camp fire victims in lawsuits against PG&E, told The Times, sarcastically.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021...a-wildfire
Quote:Last year, firefighting crews in Oregon encountered groups of people who were convinced that wildfires burning there were started by antifa. The people were stopping residents from moving on local roads and, in at least one case, prohibited firefighters from going onto their property to help set up a defensive position for oncoming flames.
When fires are extreme or wind-driven, their burn patterns can seem completely illogical to the uninitiated, and thus ripe for conspiracy as people try to make sense of what happened, said Jack Cohen, a wildfire expert and retired U.S. Forest Service firefighter.
The Carr fire that burned in Shasta and Trinity counties in Northern California in 2018 seemed to char every inch of forest in some areas, but one or two homes would survive. During the Camp fire later that year, much of the tree line remained intact, but homes tucked within them were destroyed.
Cohen said he first started hearing conspiracy theories about space-based directed-energy weapons after high-definition drone images showed the Camp fire’s pattern of destruction. People he said, are “obscenely obsessed” with what causes wildfires and fill in the blanks when they can’t explain them.
While people are impressed by high-intensity big flames, he said, the reality is that many homes and structures are destroyed more slowly during wildfires by burning embers and low-intensity surface fires that linger in vegetation.
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