This is an article from the February 2025 Civitas Examiner (Volume 2, No. 1) and was written by one of our students, Mira R. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue. To read more Civitas Examiner stories or to submit your own, click here. (Note: This article was originally written on January 5, 2025, and edited on February 23, 2025. It may continue to be updated.)
On January 7, 2025, the deadliest and most destructive fires in California’s history broke out. Over 16,000 buildings were destroyed, and 29 people have lost their lives. The fires continued to burn for over three weeks before they were contained. Yet, misinformation and conspiracies about the fires run rampant online.
One of the most glaring forms of misinformation is AI-generated images, such as this picture of the Hollywood sign burning that was spread on social media. Though pictures like these can be dismissed as jokes or attempts at internet virality, they spread unnecessary fear and confusion, and they can cause distractions for fire departments. But AI images are among the tamest wildfire misinformation spread on social media.
The same day as the wildfires broke out, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be rolling back fact-checking measures, by discontinuing use of third-party fact-checkers. This has led to an outbreak of conspiracy theories on the platform. For example, CBS reported on several Facebook posts alleging that the government used Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs) to purposefully start the fire, contributing to the irregular burn pattern (in reality, experts note that winds, terrain, and vegetation caused these asymmetrical patterns). Other Facebook users have claimed that the weather is manmade, that the wildfires were started to clear out land, or that the fires were caused by prioritizing DEI initiatives over disaster relief preparations. Spreading unfounded conspiracies like these can have dire repercussions. Like the AI-generated images, they only served to intensify the stress, anger, and tension that people felt in the face of these destructive fires. This caused even more division among Americans, and obfuscated the real causes and solutions of the fire.
Finally, one of the most pernicious pieces of misinformation is that California’s water
mismanagement led to the fire. During his first presidency, Donald Trump signed a bill into law directing more water to farmers in Southern California, from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in Northern California. However, under Biden, new laws were passed that limited the amount of water used from this source, in order to protect endangered fish species in the area such as smelt. When the fires broke out, Trump posted on Truth Social that Governor Gavin Newsom “wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California…Newscum should immediately go to Northern California and open up the water main, and let the water flow into his dry, starving, burning State, instead of having it go out into the Pacific Ocean.” Trump angrily accuses Newsom of prioritizing environmental issues over his constituents. It sounds reasonable enough, especially given that fire hydrants across the city were running dry— which is exactly why misinformation like this is so dangerous. Yes, the debate between environmentalists and Californian farmers is multifaceted, and all sides have strong arguments. But this debate has nothing to do with the Los Angeles wildfires. L.A. had adequate water to fight the fires, but low water pressure and power outages affected the fire hydrants’ functionality. Additionally, harsh winds made aerial fire-fighting techniques ineffective. Generally, the city’s fire-fighting infrastructure was built to combat small house fires, not raging wildfires.
These accusations have had disturbing consequences for California, and have introduced partisanship into disaster relief measures. House Speaker Mike Johnson was quoted as saying, “We don’t play politics with disaster aid. But there were policy decisions that were made in
California at the state and local level, by all appearances, that made this exponentially worse, and so those are things that have to be factored in with regard to the level of aid and whether there are conditions upon that.” Even more bluntly, Trump told Fox News reporters that “I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down.” (In reference to the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta). The idea of withholding or conditioning aid to California based on their policies is horrifying— especially given that it is based on false information.
Every day that the fires continued, Californians lost their homes, businesses, and even their lives. Right now, America should be unified in their desire to send relief to those facing natural disasters, not divided and misinformed.
