Fire crews in the West Hills section of Los Angeles on Jan. 9.Ethan Swope/The Associated Press
This article is part of The Globe and Mail’s initiative to cover disinformation and misinformation. E-mail us to share tips or feedback at disinfodesk@globeandmail.com.
Devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area continue to burn, having claimed at least 24 lives and destroying thousands of structures.
The fires and the response to them have been a focal point for conspiracies and misleading claims online. We have covered some, but more have gained traction or continue to circulate on social media.
FEMA offers more than an initial aid payment
Several posts on X have made the misleading claim that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is offering fire victims only a single payment of around US$750.
This claim echoes similar ones after hurricanes Helene and Milton, where it was also falsely suggested that victims would get a one-time payment.
FEMA’s mission is “helping people before, during and after disasters,” the agency says on its website, including the co-ordination of responses to disasters that overwhelm state resources.
The agency says the initial payment is known as “serious needs assistance” and is for essential items such as food, water and baby formula, but FEMA also offers other forms of assistance, including rent, home repair, child care and transportation.
The Associated Press reported that FEMA has received more than 53,000 applications for help and distributed US$12-million to fire victims so far.
FEMA has also debunked the claim that it can seize a home if someone accepts the agency’s aid.
A firefighter sprays the rubble of homes in Altadena, northeast of Los Angeles, on Jan. 15FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
Trump’s misleading FEMA and water supply claims
President-elect Donald Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform on Jan. 8 that there is “no money in FEMA” and “no water in the fire hydrants.”
The agency’s budget, which had been depleted by a series of disasters, was replenished with US$29-billion via the American Relief Act on Dec. 20, 2024. The act included a total of US$110-billion in funding for disaster assistance for areas such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
Exaggerated and misleading claims similar to Mr. Trump’s about fire hydrants have been widespread.
The Globe’s Patrick White reported that the typical hydrant system is designed to provide enough water for a contained building fire lasting a few hours. To ensure continuous pressure, many municipalities use subterranean cisterns to store adequate water.
Los Angeles has about 114 such tanks spread across the city – including three Pacific Palisades-area cisterns that hold about 3.8 million litres each. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said that all cisterns were filled prior to the fire as part of emergency-preparedness protocols.
Janisse Quiñones, the head of the department, said at a news conference on Jan. 8 that water demand when the Pacific Palisades fire started was four times greater than ever seen, making it difficult to get water to some fire hydrants in higher regions.
Janisse Quinones, Chief of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, addresses the extreme demand for water to fight wildfires around the city on Jan. 8.
The Globe and Mail
Jay Lund, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, told Reuters: “It’s not a matter of there’s not enough water in Southern California, it’s a matter of there’s not enough water in that particular area of Southern California just for those few hours that you need it to fight the fires.”
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, established californiafirefacts.com to address these and other false or misleading claims about the fires. Mr. Newsom has also called for an investigation into the water supply.
Quebec pilot fighting Los Angeles wildfires says challenges are like nothing he’s seen before
Misleading and AI-generated visuals
An image shared on X and seen more than 5.5 million times that appears to show a church that survived the fires was generated using artificial intelligence.
Close examination of the image shows distorted areas of low detail and a road that abruptly ends after passing behind some palm trees – indications it was made using AI. An AI image detector evaluated the image as fake with greater than 97-per-cent confidence.
Annotated screenshot of an AI-generated image posted to X on Jan. 13. Expanded areas show a road that ends abruptly and a warped area of low detail, indicators it was AI-generated.
An image of a house on a shoreline surrounded by burned buildings, shared on TikTok, Facebook and X and claiming to be from Los Angeles, is instead from fires in Hawaii in 2023.
A reverse image search showed the distinctive image originated in 2023 and that the “miracle house” in Lahaina was reported on at the time.
Screenshots of an image posted to X (left) and TikTok falsely claiming the house left standing is in Los Angeles. The image is from fires that hit Hawaii in 2023.