Los Angeles, the second largest metropolis in the United States, has been engulfed in flames since January 7. The official toll shows around thirty deaths and more than 12,000 homes, buildings and vehicles destroyed in the fires. This highly publicized disaster has generated a lot of misinformation online. The image of a “miraculous” house having survived the flames is massively shared by believing Internet users, who see it as proof that God protects good Christians like the owner of this home. But, according to experts contacted by AFP and online detection tools, this red-roofed residence is in reality an image generated by artificial intelligence.
“A house remained intact after the fire passed through Os Angeles” (sic), affirms the author of a message which has had around 500 shares on Facebook since January 12.
This publication, similar to dozens of others in French-speaking Africa (1, 2…), in Thailand or even at Kenyais accompanied by an image showing an intact house with a colorful roof, standing in the middle of old dwellings all devastated by the flames.
When circulating in French, this image is often presented as showing “a Christian’s house”, saved from the flames by the faith of its owner. “His house was not burned but everything around him was burned (sic) We can’t tell how much he cried with joy because he was protected by God“, states another publication, which, like many others, is accompanied by the quotation of a psalm.
Most of the accounts using this image are religion-related pages (“Christian Music CD”, “Congolese Christian musicians”, etc.) or profiles of people who make no secret of their faith.
These numerous publications each time generate hundreds of comments from Internet users moved by the current situation in Los Angeles (California), where violent fires, fueled by hot and powerful winds, have devastated neighborhoods that are both upscale and popular.
But the photo brandished in these posts is not real.
AI-generated photo
When you perform a reverse image search on Google Images, you can see by clicking on the “About this image” that the words “appear”created with Google AI.
Google actually offers tools like the one to generate images by artificial intelligence.
We also analyzed the viral photo using the tool InVID-WeVerifyco-developed by AFP, which can detect visual manipulation of photo and video content. To do this, we choose one of the first occurrences of the photo on the Internet (which can be found using the beta version of Google’s Fact-check explorer tool), in order to maximize the chances that any data linked to retouching or to the use of an AI have not been erased during a screenshot or compression of the file.
In the event of a photo of too low quality, InVID itself offers us a photo more suitable for precise analysis.
Here, the analysis reveals that there is a 76% chance that the photo was actually generated by AI, which is a very high percentage.
Since the reverse image search indicated that the viral photo was generated by Google AI, “it is very likely that it was actually created using a tool like ImageFX”suggests Denis Teyssou, head of innovation for the InVID and WeVerify projects. He explains that the artificial intelligence tool developed by Google allows images to be generated from textual descriptions.
“It is possible that a prompt (a written instruction, Editor’s note) was formulated to add an unburned house to an existing aerial photo,” estimate M. Teyssou. “Unless it’s a prompt asking for an aerial photo of a charred urban suburb with an intact house in the center.”he continues.
In a reverse image search, no trace of this photo – whose aerial view suggests it was taken from a drone or helicopter – appears in media photo databases, nor in a publication by an individual claiming to be the author, reinforcing the idea of a creation from scratch.
AFP Factual contacted two AFP photojournalists who cover the fires in Los Angeles to get their expert opinion on the viral image. “In my opinion, this looks like an image generated by artificial intelligence”indicates Cecilia Sanchez, whose photos have illustrated a number of articles (as archived here) on the fires.
-AGUSTIN PAULLIERAFP
“I flew over the burned site by helicopter on Friday January 10 and I did not see this house at all,” add his colleague David Swanson. “I’m not saying it’s not true, but it definitely looks like an AI-generated image”, he judges.
The two photographers are well placed to know what a “miraculous” house looks like in the middle of ashes, because both photographed a real home spared in Los Angeles, the only one in the immediate vicinity to have resisted the flames.
Some houses are in fact resistant to flames
The press presents other examples of homes that survived the flames. The French television channel TF1 thus broadcast on January 10 a report addressing the subject (from 1min20), in its 1 p.m. news (archived ici). The journalist mentions in particular, with supporting video, the “chance inexplicable” of a pavilion that has remained intact both outside and inside, unlike its neighbors.
The Australian media 7NEWS Australia, widely followed on social networks, also broadcast a brief interview with a man described as the owner of a house that escaped the Los Angeles fires (archived ici).
However, both do not resemble the house shown in the AI-generated photo.
On the other hand, the image that is the subject of this fact-check is reminiscent of another home that actually survived the flames a year and a half ago. This is a house that became famous because it remained intact after the fires that ravaged the Hawaiian city of Lahaina in August 2023. Renovations carried out shortly before the disaster had made it fireproof and protected from the flames.
Patrick Fallon, who photographed this residence at the time under divers anglesbelieves that the AI which generated the supposed photo of the miraculous house of the Los Angeles fires could precisely have been fed by the photo he had taken in Hawaii. “To me it looks like a “AI-generated copy of Lahaina’s red-roofed house, but placed in a neighborhood that’s no longer on the water,” he told AFP Factual.
The image is in fact repeated in certain publications with the one that interests us, as if it presented another angle of the same house. And this, even though one is at the water’s edge and the other is not. It is also used more widely in other publications associating it with the Los Angeles fires. The AFP has published an audit in English about the decontextualized use of the cliché of this Hawaiian house (archived link ici).
A lull in the incendiary winds
After more than ten days of devastating fires, a lull in winds this weekend brings some respite to firefighters who continue to battle the flames in Los Angeles, but meteorologists expect the return of more powerful squalls to from Monday.
The damage is serious: the fires have caused at least 27 deaths and more than 12,000 homes, buildings and vehicles have been destroyed or damaged. Many neighborhoods were razed. Thousands of people are displaced and dozens still missing.
These fires have destroyed more than 16,000 hectares, an area almost as large as the capital Washington, and could become the costliest in United States history, with losses estimated at $275 billion.
They also feed a large mass of disinformation, riding, as with every extraordinary catastrophe, on the emotion and empathy aroused by the events. AFP has dismantled numerous false information linked to this tragedy, such as ici, ici et ici.
