TikTok videos falsely claiming that catastrophic wildfires plaguing Canada have been started deliberately via helicopter, drone, or “Directed Energy Weapons” have proliferated across social media, garnering millions of views. 

Fact-checkers at various news agencies have already debunked several of these videos, some of which still remain viewable on the platform. Media Matters has previously highlighted TikTok’s failure to moderate misinformation about climate change, abortion, and other issues, including harmful dieting and eating disorder content targeting young people. The rapid spread of misinformation related to climate change-driven natural disasters should put TikTok moderators on high alert during wildfires, particularly those that end up endangering the health of millions of people in multiple countries.

This season’s wildfires have been impacting Canada since March but received little coverage in U.S. media until smoke reached the East Coast in recent weeks. New Yorkers saw smoky orange skies and experienced unprecedented poor air quality, and wildfire smoke is still lingering over several cities. 

Canada’s ongoing fire season, which has already seen roughly 12 million acres burned, bears the fingerprints of climate change. An unusually warm, dry spring throughout much of the country left soils dry with plenty of tinder — according to an article in Nature, Eastern Canada “had around 50% less spring precipitation than usual.” Additionally, the journal notes that “Canada has more large fires, they are burning larger areas and the fire season is getting longer — it now starts about a week earlier and ends a week later than it did 50 years ago.”

“Climate change is definitely a factor that is causing these extreme conditions to occur more frequently,” said Piyush Jain, a research scientist at the Canadian Forest Service.

Meanwhile, there is currently no evidence that any of the large wildfires are the work of arsonists. On the contrary, experts say that many of the fires in Quebec were started by lightning, which is also amplified by hot, dry weather. Even if there was an indication that arson played a significant role in starting the Canadian fires, it still wouldn’t change the fact that the climate crisis is making wildfires larger and more deadly. 

Right-wing conspiracy theories and misinformation about the fires aim to distract from this clear and well-documented connection. 

TikTok creators are spreading misinformation and suspicion about the cause of the wildfires

Media Matters identified several videos on TikTok that earned millions of views pushing misinformation about the wildfires. Some of these videos were also promoted by right-wing conspiracy theorists on other platforms, including Twitter and Telegram, to suggest that uncontained wildfires wreaking havoc across Canada were started deliberately for sinister purposes. 

In areas that are prone to wildfires, fire experts often carry out “prescribed burns” wherein fires are strategically set and extinguished in designated swaths of land in order to prevent the buildup of too much dry fuel. It is sometimes safer to do this with helicopters or drones so that firefighters may remain at a safe distance. Conspiracy theorists on TikTok and other social media platforms have now seized on this imagery to imply that the Canadian wildfires were intentionally started by an organized arson campaign.

One such video depicting satellite imagery of the wildfires in Quebec was shared on June 5 by an account with the username Dionysus and has accrued over 3 million views on the platform. Text overlaying the video reads, “How do that many fires all start at the same time across an entire province?!!”

The video has been shared over 84,000 times on TikTok. It has also been spread on Twitter by Shadygrooove, one of the hosts of the MatrixxxGrooove Show (or MG Show), a QAnon program that has been banned from multiple platforms. 

“Recent Quebec wildfires act irrationally and all start at the exact same time,” the tweet said. “Climate change has now synchronized.” 

The same idea — that several fires suspiciously erupted “all at once” and suggesting widespread, coordinated foul play — was subsequently pushed on Twitter by the clothing site and COVID-19 conspiracy theory channel Wide Awake Media, which announced a pivot to climate misinformation this year. It was also shared by conspiracy theorist and radio host Stew Peters on Telegram, where he suggested that the fires were “statistically impossible to happen by accident. Clearly our governments are targeting us with Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs).” 

Another video posted to TikTok on June 7 has 8.7 million views and depicts a helicopter carrying out a prescribed burn. According to The Associated Press, this footage was taken from a video shared by the British Columbia Wildfire Service and has been used by other TikTok accounts to promote the idea the fires were a “set up.” Several popular conspiracy theory accounts shared this same video on Twitter with the hashtag #climatescam, with one user arguing that “those that would have you believe there is an existential climate crisis are Geo-Engineering every day & starting forest fires.” On June 8, #climatescam was trending in the U.S. on Twitter.

Yet another video pushing the conspiracy theory that the wildfires were started by helicopters was posted to TikTok on June 5 and had over 7.6 million views before it was taken down after reports that the account was spreading misinformation. However, the user still has several videos featuring the original footage on their feed, including one doubling down on the idea that the helicopters were not carrying out prescribed burning, but something more malicious. The original video was also reposted by the user the same day it was taken down. According to AFP Canada, this footage is actually from 2015 and was taken by Yukon First Nations Wildfire, which provides firefighting and land management services. 

Even the smell of the fires has become a source of controversy. An emerging conspiracy theory playing out on social media alleges that the odor and color of the smoke somehow proves the Canadian wildfires are connected to a 30-ton shipment of ammonium nitrate that went missing in the western U.S. in late May. One video drawing this connection, which has over 1 million views on TikTok, has also been promoted by Peters on Twitter. 

Ammonium nitrate can be used as a fertilizer or an explosive, but there is no evidence to suggest that it is the source of the Canadian wildfires. The missing shipment’s manufacturer, Dyno Nobel, has said it doesn’t believe any criminal activity is afoot and suspects that there was a leak in the railcar gate during the two weeks the train was in transit.

Misinformation about wildfires isn’t new

Over the years, right-wing media figures and outlets have been complicit in spreading misinformation about widespread wildfires, denying the fact they are being exacerbated by dry, hot conditions caused by climate change and exaggerating stories about arsonists. In 2020, Spotify podcast host Joe Rogan pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that “left-wing people” were “lighting forest fires” on the West Coast.

This drumbeat predictably continued as this year’s Canadian wildfires and dangerous air quality advisories in the U.S. got more media attention. On Twitter and Facebook, right-wing Canadian figures including far-right politician Maxime Bernier have shared an article about an arsonist from 2021, insinuating that the same person or similarly motivated activists started the current spate of fires. A June 7 Rolling Stone article notes that conspiracy theorists on social media are also claiming the fires might have been started by shadowy elites to depopulate the planet, create an excuse to lie about climate change, and purposefully trigger another lockdown.

TikTok moderators have removed a small number of the most extreme examples of misinformation about the wildfires, but only after they were viewed by millions and spread all over the internet. The fires are still burning, and the federal agency Natural Resources Canada expects this abnormally active fire season to extend through September. Though some areas in the U.S. are currently experiencing a reprieve, the health and misinformation concerns are likely far from over.