AFP traced a viral video shared as proof of arson in France’s July 2026 wildfires and found it actually shows a 2025 arrest in Montemiletto, Italy. Reverse-image searches located the clip on Rai and it is credited to the Carabinieri press office. While many recent French fires have involved suspected arson, climate change is also intensifying fire-prone conditions through heat, drought and "weather whiplash."
Viral Arson Clip From 2025 Traced To Italy — Not France's 2026 Wildfires
Screenshot of an X post taken on August 4, 2026
As France faced record wildfires in July 2026, a short video circulated online claiming to show someone deliberately starting fires in France to dramatize climate change. AFP verification found the clip was taken out of context: it actually shows a 2025 arrest in Montemiletto, in Italy's Avellino province.
What The Post Claimed
"Meanwhile in France. Man starting Climate Change captured on Camera again. Took him all of 10 Seconds," read a July 29, 2026 post on X from the account "Concerned Citizen," which AFP has repeatedly flagged for misinformation.
Spanish-language text overlaid on the footage refers to the arrest of a 58-year-old man. Similar versions circulated in German and French as France battled its largest fires since 1949 in late July 2026.
What The Video Actually Shows
Reverse image searches located the identical footage on the Italian national broadcaster Rai’s channels in 2025. The clip carries an on-screen credit to the "Carabinieri press office" — the press arm of Italy's national gendarmerie — and matches official accounts of a blaze that hit the Sant'Eusebio and Bosco districts of Montemiletto on August 9, 2025.
According to the Carabinieri statement at the time, surveillance cameras captured the license plate of a small car seen near one of three ignition points, a lead that helped identify a suspect. The footage therefore documents a separate Italian arson investigation, not an incident tied to the 2026 fires in France.
A screenshot taken August 4, 2026 of the Italian news outlet Rai's official YouTube channel
Context: Causes And Climate
It is true that the majority of wildfires are caused by people — whether accidentally, negligently or deliberately. During France’s July 2026 outbreak, authorities detained more than 300 people in connection with the fires, and said roughly two-thirds of those detained were suspected of deliberate arson.
France's national wildfire database also reported that arson was the top identified cause of fires in 2025. At the same time, scientists and fire agencies say human-driven climate change does not directly ignite fires but does make fire weather more extreme: increased heat, prolonged drought and rapid shifts in conditions often called "weather whiplash" raise the likelihood and severity of blazes. Surface area burned in France roughly doubled when comparing 2000–2018 with 1980–1999.
Verification Takeaway
Video clips and images can be re-shared with misleading captions during crises. This case underscores the importance of checking original sources, on-screen credits and broadcaster archives before accepting or forwarding claims that footage shows a specific event or location.
AFP previously fact-checked several other clips that were misrepresented during the 2026 wildfire wave.
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