In January 2025, a video went viral on the Internet showing California emergency workers dousing a fire by filling small containers with water. Internet users identified them as women's bags. We decided to check how correct such comments are.
It was reported that even handbags were used in the fight against the fires that engulfed California.Channel One», ""Ren-TV», Life.ru, "Military Review"and other Russian media. Social network users (“VKontakte", X, Facebook*, Instagram*) and blog platforms (“Zen", "Peekaboo", LiveJournal) also discuss the creative approach of firefighters. Large Telegram channels also published a resonant video: “The goat screamed"(244,000 views at the time of writing the analysis), "Observer"(216,000), "Ostashko! Important"(157,000), "Voblya - news"(150,000), "Leprosy"(139,000), etc. Some even called brand of handbags: in the frames, according to them, luxury accessories from Louis Vuitton and Hermès.
On January 7, 2025, Los Angeles and its suburbs were engulfed in wildfires that will likely go down as one of the most destructive natural disasters in US history. At the time of writing this analysis (a week after the fire), the fire turned out to be covered already more than 150 sq. km, and the fire is still not extinguished. At least 25 people died, tens of thousands were evacuated, thousands of buildings were damaged or completely destroyed, many Hollywood celebrities, such as Anthony Hopkins, Adam Brody and Paris Hilton, lost their homes.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined; an investigation is ongoing. It is believed that cause Such catastrophic fires were partly due to weather conditions (shortly before the fire there was a severe drought in California, and after that strong winds raged, fanning the fire), and partly due to the unpreparedness of Los Angeles for such an emergency. The mayor of the city, Karen Bass, was hit with a barrage of criticism: she allegedly did not provide the necessary resources to prevent and extinguish fires. Firstly, a large reservoir in Los Angeles, from where water could flow into hydrants, turned out to be empty - it was closed for repairs (experts, however, note, that even a water supply system operating at full capacity would hardly help to quickly extinguish the fire). Also Bass accused that in 2024 it cut funding for the Los Angeles Fire Department, making it unable to prevent the spread of fire in a timely manner. However, fact checkers of the Lead Stories project have already refuted this information: although the mayor did propose to cut the fire department’s budget, in fact it even increased due to the fact that new equipment was purchased for the department and plans were made to raise employee salaries. Some stated that firefighters did not have the necessary equipment because the equipment was sent to Ukraine. However, as before wrote “Verified”, this happened back in March 2022 and is unlikely to be related to the current problems in fighting the fire.
The viral video is a 32-second fragment of a report on fires in California, re-filmed from a TV screen. A female voice-over comments in English: “Los Angeles Fire Department members use women's bags to put out fires. What’s even going on here?!” It is not surprising that when this video appeared on the Internet, it instantly provoked a new wave of indignation: supposedly, emergency services personnel are so lacking in equipment that they have to become more sophisticated and use even the most non-obvious and ridiculous means at hand. However, representatives of the Los Angeles Fire Department commented to TMZ explained, that in the footage spread across social networks, the firefighters in their hands are not handbags at all, but canvas bags, which are part of the equipment of department employees. They are used when it is necessary to put out a small fire without wasting time and effort unrolling the hose and connecting it to the fire hydrant. However, “Verified” was unable to find information about such items of equipment on official resources Los Angeles Fire Department, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Fire Administration And US Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The footage captured in the video is a fragment of a report by OneScene.TV journalists published on YouTube January 8. The original video, unlike the viral one, is posted in very good quality. This allows us to see that in the hands of the firefighters it is not the products of the fashion houses Louis Vuitton or Hermès, but, indeed, ordinary canvas bags with handles, which can hardly be considered a fashion accessory. Neither under the video on YouTube, nor under a similar publication on Facebook the authors of the original video do not comment in any way on the means that firefighters use in their work - obviously, they had no suspicion that these were women's bags.
It is unknown who shot the viral video and accompanied it with a voice-over commentary about women's handbags, but it was the first time that it was distributed published on the Arabic-language Telegram channel ParsinTV on January 9 at 14:00 Moscow time. The main content of the channel and its mirrors in X — fragments of world media reports with the ParsinTV logo superimposed on top. The editors did the same this time: the video is accompanied by the channel’s symbols. However, the video published on ParsinTV is 8 seconds long. longer than the version that went viral the most. Apparently, these “extra” frames were simply cut off by one of the Internet users who shared the video on their page, since the corresponding fragment does not contain objects that some thought were women’s bags. By the way, on the same day ParsinTV posted and a video with a flaming Hollywood sign, which, like it turned out, was generated by the neural network.
Thus, in viral footage, firefighters in Los Angeles do not use women's handbags of luxury brands to extinguish the fire, but canvas bags, which, according to department representatives, are part of their equipment. The version about the bags arose due to an erroneous comment from a certain woman who saw these images on TV and, apparently, was not closely familiar with fire extinguishing methods.
*Russian authorities consider the company Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, to be an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: screenshot Onscene TV /YouTube
Read on the topic:
- Reuters. Fact Check: Los Angeles firefighters did not use handbags to douse fire
- BBC. Why were the Los Angeles fires so devastating?
- Is the video that shows black people burglarizing a house during the Los Angeles fires true?
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