Viral image of mosque standing unharmed amid LA wildfires

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a reverse image search to find the original source of the image.

A post on social media platform TikTok on January 13, 2025, shared an image of a lone house standing amid ashes, claiming that it was a mosque that survived the Los Angeles wildfires. However, the image is old and shows a safe house amid the Hawaii wildfires in August 2023.

Six simultaneous blazes have ripped across wide areas of Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades since Jan 7, killing at least 24 people. At least 16 people are estimated to be missing.

The death toll is expected to rise, officials said, as crews carry out house-to-house searches in burnt-out neighbourhoods.

The inferno has damaged or destroyed 12,000 structures, according to US officials, reducing whole neighbourhoods to smouldering ruins.

HOW IT STARTED

The iVerify Pakistan team was alerted on Jan 17 about a post on TikTok and requested authentication for the content.

The Jan 13 post on TikTok shared an image with a video showing trees ablaze with fire. The text on the image read, “God is the superpower. When Los Angeles was burning, only God’s house, a mosque, was safe.”

The video gained 2.4 million views, 107,300 reactions and over 3,600 shares on TikTok.

Similarly, a user on X shared a picture on Jan 11 of a red-roofed house standing tall and unharmed amid ashes of trees and other houses.

The post’s caption said, “According to Al Jazeera, a Muslim home in Los Angeles was saved from a major disaster because it had a copy of the Holy Quran.”

The post gained 180,900 views and was shared 1,100 times.

The same picture with the same caption was shared here, here and here.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality, high influx of imagery being attributed to the LA wildfires, the religious nature of the claim that seemingly appealed to Muslims and to satisfy the public’s query seeking authentication for the content.

A reverse image search yielded an August 24, 2023, YouTube video posted on CBS News’ channel titled: “How a nearly 100-year-old miracle house survived the Lahaina wildfire.”

The video showed the same image under investigation that was being linked to the recent LA wildfires.

A keyword search for “house that survived Lahaina fire” yielded news stories on the Hawaii wildfires in 2023, one of them being an interview of the couple who owned the house from August 18, 2023, by the Los Angeles Times.

The couple detailed in the report how their red-roofed house survived due to its solid layout and hardscape features.

Furthermore, the search also yielded fact checks by AFP and USA Today from this week in which they had debunked a different claim of the image under investigation being from the recent LA wildfires when it was originally from Hawaii wildfires 2023.

Lastly, no Al Jazeera news report was found on any such incident or house remaining protected amid the LA wildfires due to having a copy of the Holy Quran.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that a viral image of an unscathed house amid ash is of a mosque from the LA wildfires is false.

The image does not show a mosque but an ordinary house from the Hawaii wildfires in August 2023.

Evidence and References

August 24, 2023, CBS News YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol6CN3qiAw0

August 18, 2024, Los Angeles Times news report:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-18/how-did-the-red-house-survive-the-lahaina-fire#:~:text=That’s%20followed%20by%20the%20%E2%80%9Cnear,from%20there%2C%E2%80%9D%20she%20said.&text=The%20home%20may%20also%20have,or%20attic%20vents%2C%20he%20added.