An old video of a sudden fireworks explosion in front of a residential lawn in United States has recently been shared with a false claim that the clip shows one of the incidents from France which trigged riots in the country.
BOOM found that the video is old and not from France. The huge fireworks explosion happened accidentally in United States' Nebraska on July 4, 2022, the US Independence Day.
France has recently witnessed intense violent clashes in the country after a teenager Nahel Merzouk was shot dead by police during a traffic checking. To control the situation, the country had to deploy its elite GIGN commandos, reported The Telegraph. As the protestors burnt down several places in France, more than 1000 people has already been arrested in connection with the violence.
In the viral video, people can be seen setting up and lighting a firework launcher in front of a home lawn. The firecracker, once lit, leaves sparks in its surroundings and starts a chain of fireworks compelling the spectators to run away from the place for safety. The entire incident was recorded in a surveillance camera.
The video is now being shared with the caption, "This is video of before France Riots they are now intentionally targeting peace people."
Click here to view the post.
Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the video and found that the same video was tweeted by a user on July 6, 2022.
Click here to view the tweet.
We noticed that SimpliSafe is written on the top left corner of the then tweeted video. SimpliSafe is an America-based home security company which offers indoor as well as outdoor cameras for surveillance.
Taking a cue, we ran a relevant keyword search and found several news reports from 2022 about the video. The same video can be found on FOX6 News Milwaukee's official YouTube channel uploaded on July 11, 2022.
FOX6 News Milwaukee aired the video with the description, "In Nebraska, a family's front yard fireworks show went horribly wrong. All it took was a spark to send everything up in flames, and it was all caught on camera. The video was originally posted on Reddit and has gone viral on social media, racking up more than 37 million views. Luckily, no one was hurt."
News outlet TODAY published a report about the incident on July 9, 2022. The report states, "A family in Nebraska is speaking out after a video of their catastrophic Fourth of July firework accident went viral."
One of the homeowners told TODAY Parents under the condition of anonymity, "The firework was supposed to go up, but it did not. It caused another box of fireworks to ignite, and when the rest of the fireworks ignited they shot to the left and the right. And the rest is kind of history."