Algeria Fires Spurs Misleading Images
The Claim
Images of the Algeria fires that started yesterday.
News posted on
Emerging story
Social media users are reporting on the fires in Algeria that started on 10 August, using multiple images. The accompanying images are of a forest on fire, a man herding his livestock to safety, and a child looking back from the car window at what is likely their burning home.
Misbar’s Analysis
MENA: Reverse images for the three selected images were done, and it revealed that none of the photos are linked to the fires in Algeria. The image of the burning forest was shared as early as 2012 and is from the Santa Cruz wildfires in California taken by Frans Lanting, as seen below.
The second image of the men herding their sheep was also put through TinEye and found from the recent Turkey fires shared in this article on August 2nd. The image caption is “men gather their sheep away from a wildfire in Turkey,” taken by Yasin Akgul.
The third image of the little girl looking back from the car was first posted on August 9th, before the fires in Algeria started. Further investigations showed that it was related to the recent fires in Greece and particularly the Island of Evia.
Given the findings, the Misbar team confirms some of the images shared are misleading and relate to different fires at different times. It is likely too soon to have captured such images as the fires had only started yesterday in the forested hills of the Kabylie region, in Algeria, killing at least 42 people.
