Old video from Kerala wrongly linked to ongoing heatwave in Rajasthan’s Bikaner

What is the claim?

Several social media users are sharing a video of an intense fire. They claim that it erupted after water connection pipes caught fire due to the extreme temperature in the Bikaner district of Rajasthan, a state in the northern part of India. The video shows several men running around and watching the fire, and an earth-moving machine can be seen standing just close to the fire.

An X user shared the video with a Hindi caption, which translates to, "Due to high temperature, water connection pipes caught fire in Bikaner, JCB (an earth-moving machine company name) narrowly escaped...!" Archived versions of these posts can be found here, here, and here.

Users on social media shared a video of the fire, supposedly caused by high temperatures in Bikaner district of Rajasthan (Source: X / Facebook / Modified by Logically Facts).

Intense heat waves are currently sweeping across various regions of India, causing significant distress and disruption. On May 31, the India Meteorological Department predicted a heatwave to severe heatwave likely to be experienced in some parts of Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, and Delhi.

News outlets had reported about a fire in Bikaner that broke out at the office and warehouse of a transport company on May 24. Three fire brigade vehicles were reportedly required to bring the fire under control. Goods worth lakhs of rupees were burnt in the fire, which is believed to have been caused by a short circuit. 

However, we found that the viral video is from March and shows an incident from the Idukki, a district in the South Indian state of Kerala. 

What are the facts?

We found that the same viral video was posted by a Facebook user on March 02 (archived here). 

Further, a user had also posted a longer video carrying the same footage on YouTube (archived here) on March 3, with a caption in Malayalam that indicated that the video showed an incident when hoses stocked by the water authority caught fire in Kerala's Pooppara village.

A reverse image search on keyframes of the video led us to a YouTube video posted by the Malayalam language news channel '24 News' (archived here), showing the fire from different angles. The video was uploaded on March 1, with a title that translates to, "Huge fire in Idukki Poopara; The plastic pipes were burnt." This shows that the incident took place in Pooppara, in Idukki area of Kerala. Elements in the video, such as the earthmover, the piles of gravel, and the water hoses, suggested that this video showed the same fire. 

An image comparison of the March 24 News visuals and the viral clip. (Source: 24 News / Modified by Logically Facts)

A news report by ETV Bharat in Malayalam, dated March 1, also carried footage of the same fire. In both the viral video and the ETV Bharat clip, we could spot the same man in a green shirt walking across the scene. 

The ETV Bharat video report and the viral clip feature the same person wearing a green shirt. (Source: ETV Bharat / X / Modified by Logically Facts)

On carrying out a keyword search, we found several news reports about the incident. The Hindu reported on March 1 that Rs 2.5 crore worth of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes meant to be used for various water distribution projects under the government's Jal Jeevan Mission initiative were destroyed in the fire in Pooppara village where the pipes were stored on the ground. The news report carried a similar visual of the fire as the viral clip but mentioned that the cause of the fire was not known. 

The verdict

The claim that the viral clip shows water connection pipes caught fire due to 'high temperature' in Bikaner, Rajasthan, is not true. The actual incident took place in March in Pooppara, a village in the Idukki district of Kerala. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.