A viral video claiming to show the evacuation of thousands from their homes in Los Angeles due to wildfires has been debunked as footage from a Catholic event in Portugal.
"The evacuees after the fire in Los Angeles, California," read the caption of the video, which was shared on TikTok on 19th January, 2025.
Fact-checking website AFP confirmed that the 33-second clip, which shows large crowds of people sleeping outside, was filmed during World Youth Day in Lisbon, not during any disaster in the United States.
The Catholic youth festival took place in August 2023, where up to 1.5 million young people reportedly gathered for an outdoor Mass led by Pope Francis. It was the first edition of the event since the pandemic.
The clip, which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views across social media, had also previously been used in misleading reports about Palestinian refugees displaced by the Gaza conflict.
AFP traced the tampered footage back to its original through reverse image searches that trace it back to Tejo-Trancão Park in Lisbon on 6th August 2023, where World Youth Day was held.
