Amidst the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict, a video titled “Iran’s missile in counter-attack: Fire and explosion at Israeli airbase” has been circulating on social media.
See the posts circulated on Facebook here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).
Fact-check
An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team reveals that the circulated video does not depict an Iranian attack on any Israeli airbase. In fact, the video was captured during a fire that broke out at a casino park located in Culiacán, Mexico, on January 16 last year.
Conducting a reverse image search using multiple keyframes from the video circulated with the discussed claim led to a report published on January 17 last year on the website of the UK-based news outlet Daily Mail, titled “Unbelievably tiny cause of massive explosion that blew apart casino revealed”. The report includes an attached video and several photographs that perfectly match the scenes shown in the viral video.
Regarding the video, the report states, “A short circuit was the cause of a devastating fire that destroyed a casino and an indoor children’s park in western Mexico, authorities in Sinaloa state reported… The blaze started shortly after 11 a.m. local time (on Thursday, January 16) and was brought under control within two hours. A total of 88 members from the Culiacán Fire Department, Red Cross, and Civil Defense participated in controlling the fire, using 500,000 liters of water to extinguish the flames.” (Translated)
On the same topic, a report titled ‘Revelan causa del incendio de Casino en Culiacán’ was found published on January 16 last year on the website of the Mexico-based news outlet El Heraldo De México. The report states, “On the afternoon of Thursday, January 16, a massive fire broke out at the Cinépolis Plaza in Culiacán. The fire primarily damaged the facilities of Casino Royale Park and Trampoline Park. The incident occurred on Pedro Infante Boulevard, a few blocks away from the State Congress building.” (Automatically translated)
Additionally, news reports on this matter were found in several other media outlets, confirming that the circulated video is originally from Mexico.
It is worth noting that when the video spread with a different false claim last year, Rumor Scanner published a fact-check report on the matter at that time.
Therefore, footage of a fire at a casino park in Culiacán, Mexico, from January of last year has been circulated with the claim of depicting an Iranian attack on an Israeli airbase; this claim is completely false.
Sources
- Daily Mail – Unbelievably tiny cause of massive explosion that blew apart casino revealed
- El Heraldo De México – Revelan causa del incendio de Casino en Culiacán