Old Images Peddled As Recent Forest Fire In Uttarakhand

Several old images of forest fires from across the world have resurfaced with claims that they are from the recent Uttarakhand forest fires, after news broke out about a forest fire that hit a large area of Uttarakhand earlier this week.

However, forest officials from Uttarakhand have confirmed that the fire is not as remotely severe as seen in the social media posts. According to the Uttarakhand forest department, the incident has affected about about 81 hectares of land in the state over the last week and has caused a loss worth Rs 2.19 lakh. 

BOOM was also able to trace the images, falsely claimed to be from Uttarakhand. 

Netizens have called out mainstream media channels for not reporting about the incident and supported the posts and tweets with old images of forest fires which look devastating in nature. The viral images show the effect of natural calamity like a forest fire, a week after cyclone Amphan hit southern Bengal.

Click here for the archive of one such tweet. 

One such image, which has been tweeted with the caption, "46 Wildfires & Over Half The WildLife Species In Danger: Uttarakhand Has Been Burning For 4 Days, nobody is talking about this" can be seen below. Click here for the archive of the tweet.

Click here to see an archive of another forest fire image, that has been passed off as the recent Uttarakhand forest fire. Click here and here for similar tweets using old images. 

The same set of images are viral on Facebook as well .

Fact Check 

BOOM ran a reverse image search on the viral photographs and found that all are unrelated. 

Image 1

The first image was traced to an article on Columbia Magazine which states that the photograph is a property of the Getty Images. It was taken by David McNew and has been uploaded on the Getty Images stock pictures site on September 18, 2007. According to the caption, the image was taken after a fire broke out near Fawnskin, California.

Image 2

Upon reverse image search on the second photograph in the viral tweets, we found that the image was used in a 2016 news report about Uttarakhand forest fires in Scroll.  The image was credited to photographer Anup Sah. We were able to find the same image uploaded on Anup Sah Photography's Facebook page which was uploaded on April 28, 2016.

Image 3

Upon running a reverse image search, we found that the image, originally by the Press Trust Of India (PTI) was published in The Hindu Business Line on May, 2016. The article reported about the Uttarakhand fire that broke out in the same year. 

Image 4

This image from California was originally uploaded in an article in the NASA website titled 'Study: Fire seasons getting longer, more frequent' with the caption, "The 2013 Rim fire in and near Yosemite National Park, California, was the third largest in the state's history, burning more than 250,000 acres. Almost two years later, forest restoration efforts are still ongoing. Credit: Mike McMillan/USFS." 

Image 5

The image was published in a Diplomat news report on November 13, 2019 about Australia's wildfire crisis.  

Image 6

The image is from the Tuolumne Family Camp near Groveland, California. It was published in an article titled "Elite Native American Firefighters Join Crews At Yosemite" in August, 2013.  

Uttarakhand chief minister and forest department dismisses rumours of high intensity forest fire

In a tweet, the Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat called out the fake images doing the rounds as Uttarakhand. He further stated that the fire reported in Uttarakhand this year is of less intensity than the previous years.  

The Uttarakhand Forest Department also flagged the fake images. 

IPS Ashok Kumar from Uttarakhand Police reiterated the same and in a tweet stated that apt action will be taken against "rumour mongers."