Footage of Chile wildfire falsely linked to India-Pakistan conflict

Published on May 12, 2025 at 09:07
3 min read
By AFP India

Pakistan and India engaged in four days of intense fighting before a US-brokered truce was announced May 10, 2025. But footage of flames lighting up the night sky does not depict the crisis; it was filmed when wildfires burned parts of Chile in 2024.

"If there is a shortage of firecrackers, take more from us son. Live from Sialkot," reads the Hindi-language caption of a video shared May 8, 2025 on Facebook, referring to a city in Pakistan's Punjab province.

The 20-second clip features a woman crying as she films flames shooting up beyond a road.

More than 60 people were killed in the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbours in decades before US President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced a ceasefire on social media (archived link).

Fighter jet, missile, drone and artillery strikes erupted two weeks after gunmen killed 26 people on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir, in an attack New Delhi blames on its arch-foe neighbour. Islamabad denies the accusations.

Screenshot of the false post taken May 9, 2025

Similar posts surfaced on Facebook and Threads, also misrepresenting the clip that had previously been falsely linked to an attack by Iran on Israel.

AFP found it was taken during one of the deadliest fires in Chile in February 2024 that killed at least 133 people and destroyed some 7,000 homes.

A combination of reverse image and keyword searches found the video in a TikTok post from February 3, 2024 which said it showed fires in the South American nation.

The video was posted by a TikTok user called "pat_land" but later removed. AFP found an archived version of the post on the WayBack Machine archiving tool.

"Evacuating #fire #achupallas terrible to see the homes of friends and neighbours burning but even more painful to see little animals scorched to a crisp. God help us," the Spanish-language caption says.

Screenshot of archived TikTok post taken May 9, 2025

A Spanish-speaking AFP journalist confirmed the people in the video were speaking the language.

The Achupallas neighbourhood in Chile's Vina del Mar, a seaside resort city, became engulfed by wildfires that broke out simultaneously on February 2, 2024 and took days to extinguish (archived link).

Local media outlet Citizen Action Chile shared the same TikTok video on Facebook on February 4, 2024 with the caption: "Achupallas, Viña del Mar (archived link)".

Screenshot comparison of the clip shared in false posts (L) and the TikTok video shared on the Chilean media outlet's Facebook page

Elements in the footage of the fire, including an electricity pole, footbridge, trees and a road barrier can be seen in Google Maps street imagery of an intersection between a street called Livingstone and the Carlos Ibáñez del Campo road.

Screenshot comparison between the images taken from TikTok video uploaded on Facebook (left and centre) and the street view taken from Google Maps (right)

AFP has debunked the wave of misinformation around the India-Pakistan crisis here.

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