{"id":10695,"date":"2025-01-24T10:48:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T09:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/?p=10695"},"modified":"2025-02-03T17:50:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T16:50:34","slug":"the-hollywood-sign-did-not-burn-down-in-the-catastrophic-fire-that-swept-through-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/2025\/01\/24\/the-hollywood-sign-did-not-burn-down-in-the-catastrophic-fire-that-swept-through-los-angeles\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cHollywood\u201d sign did not burn down in the catastrophic fire that swept through Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Original article<\/a> (in Croatian) was published on 1\/13\/2025; Author: Ivan Neki\u0107<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


The video showing the Hollywood sign on fire, which has been circulating on social media since January 9, was most likely generated by AI.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For six days now, firefighters have been battling catastrophic fires that have hit the Los Angeles area in the U.S. state of California. According to CNN<\/a>, at least 24 people have died, dozens are considered missing, and local officials emphasize that due to the scale of the fires, it is not safe to estimate the number of fatalities. The area burned by the fires in Los Angeles is larger than the area of the city of Paris, and the spread of the fire is facilitated by the American construction style, with houses predominantly made of wooden materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with every major fire, conspiracy theorists on social media have already started spreading various disinformation. Some theories suggest that this is a \u201cpunishment from God\u201d, while others use photos and videos created by artificial intelligence to support their claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hollywood Sign Trust spokesperson: The fire has not reached the sign<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 9, the Instagram profile \u201csrpsko_ruski_centar_majak\u201d shared a video (archived here<\/a>) showing the Hollywood sign with large flames visible in the background, accompanied by the following caption in Cyrillic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIs this a sign from above? \ud83d\ude09 The Hollywood sign burned down in Los Angeles!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"screenshot\/Facebook\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The video was published on January 9 and gathered 920 likes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as confirmed by several credible American media outlets and fact-checkers, the devastating fires did not affect the famous Hollywood sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Zarrinnam, president of the Hollywood Sign Trust, told Reuters<\/a> on January 9 that the famous sign was not impacted by the fire and that it is \u201csafe\u201d. Griffith Park, where the Hollywood sign is located, was temporarily closed for safety reasons, he added. Additionally, photos<\/a> taken on January 9 by Reuters photographer Carlin Stiehl also show the sign untouched, with no fire nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fire reached 3.7 kilometers from the sign<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also worth mentioning that the map of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection<\/a> shows that as of January 10 (AEDT), the location of the legendary sign was not within the fire area. The fire that came closest to the famous sign, called the \u201cSunset Fire<\/a>\u201d, reached approximately 3.7 kilometers from the sign, according to Google Maps<\/a>. The Hollywood Sign Trust also posted on its Facebook profile on January 9<\/a> that the claim about the sign burning in the fire was fake news, and in a post published<\/a> on January 11, they reiterated that the sign is still standing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Australian fact-checking web portal AAP<\/a>, the video showing large flames behind the Hollywood sign was clearly created by a digital art and graphics creator named \u201cgrammysammy\u201d, who shared this video on TikTok<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>. On the artist\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>, other similar computer-generated videos can be found, and the channel\u2019s description includes a link to the PayPal service through which the artist collects donations for their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, the video of the famous Hollywood sign with huge flames in the background is computer-generated. A spokesperson for the Hollywood Sign Trust, the organization responsible for the sign, confirmed that the sign was not affected by the large fire that struck the Los Angeles area. This is also supported by the map published by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The fire closest to the Hollywood sign came to about 3.7 kilometers away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original article (in Croatian) was published on 1\/13\/2025; Author: Ivan Neki\u0107 The video showing the Hollywood sign on fire, which has been circulating on social media since January 9, was most likely generated by AI. For six days now, firefighters have been battling catastrophic fires that have hit the Los Angeles area in the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[543],"class_list":["post-10695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-checks","tag-la-fire"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10695"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10709,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10695\/revisions\/10709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}