Fact Check: Are some of the worst visuals of Uttarakhand forest fires on Twitter real?

There have been incidents of forest fires in the Uttarakhand jungles for the past few days. While the fires have affected around 81 hectares of land in the state, there have been many pictures circulating on social media that are said to be taken of these fires. However, a lot of these pictures on social media are fake and misleading, thus making many believe that the situation is far worse than it really is.

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Pictures that are supposed to be of the Uttarakhand fires raged like a storm on Twitter. People shared and re-shared images that show large masses of land ablaze. These pictures are disturbing and can lead to people believing that the fires are far worse than they are. Here are some pictures shared on social media.

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A Google Reverse Image search was done on some of the most common pictures that were shared by Twitter users as Uttarakhand fire fake news. One of the images was uploaded in the year 2016. It shows a wildfire in California, US:

(Source: Columbia Magazine)

Yet another image of fire in trees is being shared under the name of Uttarakhand forest fire news. This picture was originally used in an article on a news source about Wildfires in the US. Here is a snippet of the article:

(Source: Softpedia News)

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The Uttarakhand Forest Department also took up this issue and tweeted about some of the pictures being fake. They shared snippets of articles that have the same pictures from previous years, which prove that the pictures are not of the Uttarakhand fires. They have stated in their tweet that some images that are being shared were not uploaded by them. Here is the tweet:

The Uttarakhand forest fire fake news was busted by PIB Uttarakhand

The Press Information Bureau in Uttarakhand also took upon themselves to inform that the pictures shared by people on Twitter and other social media portals are fake. The tweet claims in Hindi that the images shared are old and some also belong to other countries. They have also requested people to not share such news and be careful of fake information.

Jai Raj, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Uttarakhand Forest Department, said that the officials are doing their best to make sure that the fires seize, as claimed by a news source. He talked about how the team is continuously working towards working to douse these fires. Raj also shared with the source that rainfall has been predicted in the region by the Indian Meteorological Department on Wednesday, so they are in hopes that it will help in controlling the fire further. 

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