Mexico military exercise misrepresented as Los Angeles fire deployment

"When the flames spread, kindness crosses borders. Mexican firefighters arriving in over a dozen helicopters to help battle the #LosAngeles wildfires remind us of the power of humanity," says a January 10, 2025 TikTok post with almost 20,000 likes.

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Screenshot from TikTok taken January 23, 2025

The same footage and claim have circulated elsewhere on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bluesky and YouTube -- including in Spanish.

California Governor Gavin Newsom said the Los Angeles fires could be one of the worst natural disasters in US history, causing tens of thousands to flee their homes and potentially over $275 billion in property damage. 

Newsom deployed thousands of state National Guard members, and the Biden administration pledged to send hundreds of federal firefighters.

On January 11, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced she would send a cohort of firefighters to assist California authorities. 

Unrelated video

But the video shared is unrelated. A reverse image search using keyframes revealed the same video was published on a Spanish-language Facebook page called "Mexico Aerospace and Defense" on January 7, days before Sheinbaum said she was sending aid (archived here).

A voice in the background of the video mentions the aircraft in the footage are Air Force "Cougar helicopters and 15 UH-60s" carrying out an operation as part of the nation's "external defense."

Contacted by AFP, the owners of the account confirmed they had filmed the helicopters on September 14, 2018 at the Santa Lucía military air base, north of Mexico City, during a rehearsal for an Independence Day parade taking place two days later.

A keyword search produced a 2018 article about the September 16 parade featuring Cougar and UH-60 helicopters from the Mexican Navy and Air Force (archived here).

A second keyword search revealed a September 16, 2018, video posted to then-president Enrique Peña Nieto's YouTube page of the actual parade in Mexico City, where the same helicopters fly over the capital about 32 minutes into the footage (archived here).

Images and footage of the Mexican firefighters released by Newsom show the group touching down at Los Angeles International Airport in a transport airplane operated by the country's air force, not a fleet of helicopters as the posts claim (archived here and here).

AFP has debunked other claims about the Los Angeles wildfires.