Video Doesn't Show Drone Starting California Wildfires

The footage depicts a flamethrower attached to a drone starting fires. Many claim that it shows the deliberate setting of the recent California wildfires.

However, Misbar’s investigation found that the caption accompanying the video is false. We conducted a reverse image search using screenshots from the video and found that it was first posted on August 21, 2020. The Facebook page for a firefighter service, Fireman323, posted it with a caption reading: “Heli-Torch. Drip Torch on Steroids from a helicopter. Who can tell me why they are burning out and what this tool is truly called? We are not just burning the forest.  This is a tactic used to fight a brush fire, as well as other uses.”

Controlled burns help quell wildfires by starting fires to clear out dry brush before they can catch fire uncontrollably. The founder of Throwflame, a drone fire-starting company, said: “Everyone’s already sort of scared of drones, and then you add a flamethrower on top of that and they think great, here comes the apocalypse. But there’s actual lifesaving applications for a product like this.”

The “dragon eggs,” as the fire-starting balls are called, allow management of fires so that native flora may return.