As devastating wildfires swept through Los Angeles in January 2025, dramatic dashcam footage resurfaced in social media posts in multiple languages that falsely claimed it shows a family’s escape from the blaze. The footage was in fact filmed in November 2018, when a deadly inferno dubbed Camp Fire hit northern California.
“#LAfire. I saw the news and it was already scary. I watched this clip and want to cry,” reads Thai-language text overlay on a TikTok post from January 6, 2025.
The video, filmed from inside a vehicle, shows cars driving along a highway as smoke billows from a burning mountainside. As the vehicle nears the flames, it makes a U-turn.
People inside the car can be heard speaking Russian.
Screenshot of the false TikTok post, taken January 17, 2025
The post garnered more than 57,000 views and 1,000 likes before it was removed.
The footage circulated in similar social media posts in a string of languages, including Indonesian, English, Hindi and Arabic.
The posts emerged as huge wildfires raced through Los Angeles, killing at least 27 people, with dozens still missing (archived link).
But the footage shared online was filmed in 2018 and shows the deadliest blaze in recent California history (archived link).
Camp Fire
A reverse image search of the video on Google found it was previously posted on Facebook by Karolina Protsenko, a now-16-year-old Ukrainian violinist, on November 9, 2018 (archived link).
“For the first time in my life I felt like we are going to die. We got trapped into the fire. Thank you God for saving us. On this video I speak Russian. Mostly I am just praying. I am too emotional,” she wrote.
In the footage, Protsenko and her mother can be heard saying in Russian: “The sky is black, Mum” and “God, save us please. I’m afraid to go there. Daughter, pray.”
Below is a screenshot comparison between a false TikTok post (left) and Protsenko’s Facebook video from 2018 (right):
Screenshot comparison between a false TikTok post (left) and Protsenko’s Facebook video from 2018 (right)
Russian-American news site Forum Daily reported on the family’s ordeal in a November 2018 article headlined: “A family of Ukrainians from California fell into a fire trap on the highway” (archived link).
The massive blaze, dubbed Camp Fire, ravaged the town of Paradise in Butte County, north of California’s state capital Sacramento (archived link).
The blaze was sparked by faulty power lines owned by the state’s largest energy utility firm Pacific Gas and Electric, AFP reported at the time (archived link).
The inferno killed more than 80 people and remains the deadliest fire in recent California history (archived link).
The same clip was falsely shared online in 2019 as a fire in Kalimantan in Indonesia.
AFP has debunked a wave of misinformation around the Los Angeles wildfires.
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