False claim video shows French government intentionally setting wildfires | Fact check

Isabella Fertel, USA TODAY
·4 min read

The claim: Video shows French government intentionally igniting forest fires

An Aug. 16 post on X (direct link, archive link), formerly known as Twitter, shows a video of a helicopter flying over a forest and spraying flames on trees below.

“Forest fires in France caused by the government,” reads the post’s caption.

The post was shared more than 50 times on Facebook, according to social media analytics tool CrowdTangle. The video was reposted on X more than 1,000 times in two weeks.

The video continues to be shared alongside other versions of the claim on Instagram and Facebook.

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Our rating: False

The video used in the post was first shared in August 2018 and shows a controlled burn in Canada. It is unrelated to wildfires in southern France.

Video posted in 2018, unrelated to recent wildfires in France

The X post surfaced in August while wildfires in France’s Pyrenees region burned more than 1,000 acres of land, prompting more than 2,000 people to evacuate the area.

But the video in the post is five years old and unrelated to those fires. The footage matches a video posted by Arduini Helicopters, a Canadian helicopter charter company, to Facebook on Aug. 22, 2018.

Thomas Arduini, who owned Arduini Helicopters at the time, told USA TODAY in an email the video was taken in Canada, not France.

Arduini said he was "piloting the helicopter in the video, assisting the Ministry of Forests in control burn operations."

At the time of the 2018 post, multiple wildfires were burning across British Columbia, including a fire by Narcosli Creek. The British Columbia Wildfire Service announced on X they were planning a "major burn operation" to help eliminate vegetation in the fire's path on Aug. 21, 2018.

Firefighters in Canada and the U.S. intentionally burn sections of forest to slow the spread of wildfires, especially in remote and hard-to-access areas, according to Mike Westwick, a fire information officer with the Northwest Territories government. That way, when a wildfire reaches a certain area of the forest, there is less vegetation for the fire to burn and firefighters can guide where it spreads, Westwick previously told USA TODAY.

These kinds of controlled burns are “one of the most effective ways” to fight wildfires of extreme intensity and size, he said, and “are only undertaken with extremely careful consideration of the conditions and under the careful planning of specialists.”

Fact check: Helicopter setting fire to forest was slowing wildfire, not setting one

French officials told Reuters that “intense heat, dryness and tumultuous winds of up to 180 kilometers per hour" created a high fire risk in the region.

Controlled burns and other fire mitigation techniques have become frequent subjects of misinformation on social media. USA TODAY has debunked similar claims regarding footage of firefighters using controlled or prescribed burns in California and Canada.

USA TODAY reached out to the X user for comment but they did not provide any evidence to support the claim.

Reuters also debunked this claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video is from 2018, unrelated to French fires in 2023 | Fact check