The False Narrative
In January 2025, California officials indefinitely stopped a fleet of 60 fire trucks en route from Oregon to help fight Southern California wildfires for emissions testing.

The Facts
Destructive wildfires began breaking out around the Los Angeles area on Jan. 7, 2025, scorching more than 63 square miles by the afternoon of Jan. 14, 2025, according to officials. Three days after the fires started, conservative social media users and a local website claimed that California officials had indefinitely halted 60 fire trucks sent from Oregon so that they could undergo emissions testing, impeding them from aiding in California’s firefighting efforts.

The posts implied that California officials care more about environmentalism than people’s lives.

In fact, the fire trucks (there were 75, not 60) underwent brief inspections in Sacramento for mechanical issues, not for emissions, and were quickly back on the road, reaching their planned destinations on time, according to Oregon and California officials.

A Jan.12, 2025, statement posted on the Oregon fire marshal’s X page said that the fire trucks underwent “a routine safety check” for mechanical issuesin Sacramento on Jan. 9, 2025, before continuing on to Los Angeles. “Our strike teams were scheduled to arrive in Southern California on Thursday,” the statement said. “There was no delay in the process or travel.”

It takes approximately 45 minutes for the Sacramento inspection station to inspect, service, and release a group of five fire trucks, a station official, Darren Law, said in a Jan. 11, 2024, video posted to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Facebook page. The station processed approximately 130 out-of-state firetrucks in one day, Law said.

Text accompanying the video noted that the safety checks are meant to catch any mechanical problems that arose while out-of-state vehicles traveled hundreds of miles — a longer-than-normal drive for most fire trucks. “Recognizing that these heavy-duty vehicles endure extensive travel, sometimes arriving with worn or out-of-specification components, we are committed to ensuring their safety before deployment to the front lines,” the video text stated.

A spokesperson for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection told Portland, Oregon, TV station KATU News for a Jan. 11, 2025, fact check that the safety inspections focused on mechanics, such as brake function, and “no emissions testing was performed.”

How the False Narrative Emerged
The false narrative appears to have emerged in a Jan. 10, 2025, X post from user @ParkCardwell, who has since made his account private. Screenshots of the post show that it stated: “I just heard from my brother, a firefighter in Central Oregon, that the 60 firetrucks the state sent to support the LA fires are being held up in Sacramento for ‘emissions testing.’ They likely won’t pass inspection and won’t be able to help…What a joke.” The post received at least 48,000 likes and 14,000 reposts before it was deleted, screenshots show.

The user later deleted the post and published another one apologizing for sharing “invalid information.”

Where the False Narrative Spread
The false narrative was advanced primarily by conservative and conspiracy theory-oriented social media users.

For example, a Los Angeles-based life coach, Marczell Klein, who has shared multiple conspiracy theories about the Southern California wildfires, stated in a Jan. 11, 2025, Instagram video: “Oregon sent 60 firetrucks, only for them to get stopped in San Francisco [sic] for guess what? Emissions testing, which they’re probably not going to pass. The whole state’s on fire, and they’re finding a reason to not allow 60 more firetrucks to come help us. That sounds like they want us to burn.” The post received 227,690 likes in two days.

Klein’s video was reposted widely on X and TikTok, including by Liz Churchill, a far-right conspiracy theorist with 675,000 X followers. Churchill’s Jan. 11, 2025, post received 1.7 million views, 20,000 likes, and 9,800 reposts in two days.

SMObserved.com, a website based in Santa Monica, California, that NewsGuard has found regularly publishes misinformation, reported @ParkerCardwell’s claims as fact in a Jan. 11, 2025, article headlined “Sacramento Bottles Up 60 Oregon Firetrucks Sent to Assist California Fire Fight, Lacking Smog Certificates.” The site later retracted the article, stating: “We’re unable to verify the original tweet, so we’re taking it down. We were asked to take it down because ‘we can’t have people like you posting misinformation during an emergency.’ This from a local official.”

Conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza shared a video in which a man makes the false claim and cites SMObserved.com’s reporting in a Jan. 11, 2025, X post. D’Souza stated: “Oregon sent 60 fire trucks to California to help with the fires, but they’re being held in Sacramento for emissions testing. You can’t make this up!” The post received 1.3 million views, 27,000 likes, and 12,000 reposts in two days.

The False Narrative
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley, State Farm CEO Jon Farney, and other unnamed insurance executives planned the 2025 Southern California fires in order to destroy child-trafficking tunnels under Los Angeles.

The Facts
There is no evidence that California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley, State Farm CEO Jon Farney,and other insurance executives planned the 2025 Southern California fires in order to destroy supposed child-trafficking tunnels.

On Jan. 9, 2025, the third consecutive day of raging wildfires that prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of residents around Los Angeles, conspiracy theory-oriented X user @AmericazOutlaw stated, “Well placed sources have said that the 🔥 are actually being used to destroy the child trafficking tunnels under the Pacific Palisades, all the way to the Playboy Mansion.” The post accused Newsom, Bass, Crowley, and Farney of engaging in a “plan to destroy the tunnels.”

The @AmericazOutlaw post specifically accused Newsom of “mismanaging the forestry service to keep the brush in as a way to exacerbate the” fires. The post also said that Mayor Bass “cut the LA Fire Dept. budget by $17.6 million” to hamper the Los Angeles Fire Department’s response, alleged that Chief Crowley prioritized diversity measures to make sure new hires “weren’t equipped to handle the job,” and said that “insurance companies such as State Farm” cancelled thousands of policies before the January 2025 fires “to make sure that the tunnels are destroyed & nothing is found in insurance investigations.” The post did not name any other insurance companies.

In the wake of the wildfires, critics have raised questions about California’s forestry policies, Los Angeles’ firefighting budget, and the fire department’s diversity initiatives. However, there is no evidence that these actions were part of a conspiracy to impede firefighting in order to destroy evidence of child trafficking.

State Farm Insurance, based in Bloomington, Illinois, did not renew approximately 1,600 home-insurance policies in Pacific Palisades in 2024, according to a CBS News report. However, those moves were part of a larger trend of private insurers, including Allstate and Farmers Insurance, tightening underwriting standards for California homeowners, according to press releases by the insurers and reports by CBS and the Los Angeles Times.

In a March 2024 press release, State Farm stated that California coverage rollbacks were due to “​​inflation, catastrophe exposure, reinsurance costs, and the limitations of working within decades-old insurance regulations.”

Through a spokesman, Gov. Newsom strongly denied the allegations. “This is absolutely false,” Newsom spokesman Brandon Richards told NewsGuard in a Jan. 13, 2025, email.

“These historic, and deadly firestorms were due to extreme weather: high winds and dry conditions.”

Indeed, dry conditions and strongwinds are contributing to the intensity of the fires, according to the National Weather Service. Investigations into the origin of the wildfires were ongoing as of Jan. 15, 2024.

State Farm and the Los Angles Fire Department did not respond to two emails from NewsGuard requesting comment. Mayor Bass’s office did not return two phone messages.

Other false claims circulating online falsely claim that the Getty Museum in Los Angeles was destroyed in the fire in order to hide evidence of child-trafficking tunnels under the museum.

The @AmericazOutlaw post noted above also instructed readers to “Research Ally Carter.” This is an apparent reference to a woman who said in an October 2022 interview with Stew Peters, a conservative commentator: “As young as I remember, I’ve been trafficked through many elite places, I went from the Buckingham Palace to under the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.” She continued: “Under the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, there are many tunnels. There’s every single way of transportation under the ground. I was sold to Joe Biden.”

However, Carter has not provided evidence of the existence of a network of tunnels under the Getty Museum. Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson Warren Moore told USA Today in November 2022, the most recent comment on the claim to date, that police had “no investigations into anything of the sort.” The newspaper reported that Lisa Lapin, a spokesperson for the J. Paul Getty Trust, called the claim part of “the stream of fake and false information widely circulating on social media.”

Steven Kelley, an analyst for Russian state media outlet RT, appears to be the originator of the claim regarding the Getty Museum, advancing in a book published in 2011. Asked by USA Today in November what evidence he had to support this claim, he said that a psychic had told him about “an underground facility” at the Getty Villa after visiting it remotely using “astral projection.” He did not provide tangible evidence to support his claim.

Moreover, contrary to claims that the fires were designed to destroy tunnels under the Getty Museum, as of Jan. 15, 2025, Getty campuses in the Pacific Palisades and Brentwood neighborhoods of Los Angeles remained intact, according to The Washington Post.

How the False Narrative Emerged
The false narrative appeared to originate with the Jan. 9, 2025, post noted above by @AmericazOutlaw, an X account that has previously advanced conspiracy theories including the Pizzagate conspiracy theory positing that Democrats ran a child sex trafficking ring from a Washington, D.C. pizzeria.

The @AmericazOutlaw post received 3.8 million views, 24,000 likes, and 9,800 reposts within one day. As of Jan. 15, 2025, it had received 4.2 million views, 26,000 likes, and 10,000 reposts.

Where the False Narrative Spread
The claim subsequently spread on X and Threads, albeit with lower reach.

In a Jan. 9, 2025, post, conspiracy-oriented user @369Nikita reposted @AmericazOutlaw’s post and said, “Insurance companies in California even dropped fire coverage a while back. … This is arson, this is all done on purpose.” The post received 2,636 views, 12 likes, and 3 reposts as of Jan. 15, 2025.

The False Narrative
The Los Angeles Fire Department did not have enough equipment to fight Southern California’s January 2025 wildfires because it donated fire equipment to Ukraine.

The Facts
There is no evidence that the Los Angeles Fire Department lacked equipment to fight the January 2025 wildfires in Southern California, or that the supposed shortfall was because it donated equipment to Ukraine, contrary to claims by conservative U.S. and pro-Kremlin sources. The fire department did donate surplus equipment to Ukraine almost three years before the wildfires erupted, but the donated equipment was no longer in service and had been replaced by newer items, according to a former Los Angeles fire chief.

After Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Los Angeles Fire Department sent fire equipment to Ukraine, as did the fire departments of numerous states, Fox News reported in April 2022. The Los Angeles Fire Department said in a March 2022 press release that it donated surplus equipment and gear, including body armor, boots, hoses, and nozzles to help first responders in Ukraine, who “faced shortages in supplies to help provide basic emergency services and fire protection.”

These donations were made almost three years before the wildfires erupted in January 2025m, and the donated equipment was no longer being used by firefighters, former Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby told U.S. news site The Dispatch, which fact-checked the claim. “These were old items that were no longer in service and had previously been replaced by newer items,” said Osby, who was fire chief when the donations were made. Los Angeles TV station ABC7 reported at the time that the donated equipment had been “sitting in storage.”

Additionally, California-based wildfire mitigation specialist Ivan O’Neill told U.K. news site The Independent that the fire department’s donations to Ukraine “had nothing to do with the outcome in Los Angeles,” referring to the continued spread of the wildfires.

Experts have linked difficulties in containing the wildfires to various factors, including unusually dry weather, strong winds, the hilly terrain, and urban water systems that were not built for such intense firefighting efforts. Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said during a Jan. 8, 2025, press conference, “L.A. County and all 29 fire departments in our county are not prepared for this type of widespread disaster. There are not enough firefighters in L.A. County to address four separate fires of this magnitude.” Marrone did not mention any equipment shortage.

How the False Narrative Emerged
The claim apparently first emerged after U.S. writer and conservative commentator John LeFevre said in a Jan. 8, 2025, post on X, “And the LA Fire Department sent surplus equipment to Ukraine….” The post garnered 3.5 million views, 2,700 likes, and 1,000 reposts in eight days, including a repost by Donald Trump, Jr.

LeFevre’s post was accurate. However, some U.S. conservative and pro-Kremlin sources subsequently claimed that there was a direct link between the Los Angeles Fire Department’s alleged lack of preparedness to fight the wildfires and its donations to Ukraine.

For example, a Jan. 9, 2025, post by the X account of the Washoe County Republican Party in Nevada, @RealWashoeGOP, stated, “Democrats sent LAFD’s hoses to Ukraine, leaving LA without equipment to fight fires,” garnering 1,400 views and 14 likes in a week.

Where the False Narrative Spread
The false claim was spread by conservative accounts on social media, including X and Facebook, and by news channel Fox News.

During the Jan. 8, 2025, episode of “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, host Laura Ingraham said: “We also found out that they sent a bunch of so-called excess firefighting equipment to Ukraine, that’s what they did in the LA Fire Department…. [E]veryone feels all noble and they feel altruistic about it, but in the end, they don’t have the tools to fight this.”

The false claim was also spread by pro-Kremlin websites, including the website of popular Russian newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda and Moskovsky Komsomolets, and pro-Kremlin accounts on Telegram.

For example, Telegram account @Lepragram said in aJan. 9, 2025, post in Russian, “Another reason for the weak fight against fires was the fact that in 2022, the Los Angeles Fire Department donated its firefighting equipment to Ukraine, which they themselves are now in dire need of.” The post received 140,000 views in a week.