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Sofia Ahmed
By Sofia Ahmed January 13, 2025

This photo doesn’t show a home that survived the Los Angeles wildfires. It was taken in Hawaii.

If Your Time is short

The photos show a house that survived August 2023 wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Wildfires in Los Angeles have killed at least 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes. In images shared online, a single red-roofed house stands unscathed amid the rubble of burned homes.

"This Christian’s home in Los Angeles, California, miraculously survived Los Angeles wildfire that ravaged surrounding houses," a Jan. 13 Facebook post said. Multiple other posts included images of the house from different angles as well as a photo of a man wearing a face mask.

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

The picture is real, but it’s not from the Los Angeles wildfires that erupted Jan. 7. We did a  reverse-image search and found the image shows a house that survived the August 2023 wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Featured Fact-check

The masked man pictured in the post does not own the home. A reverse-image search revealed that the picture was taken from an interview with a Los Angeles resident that was posted Jan. 9 on an Australian television station's social media pages. "My entire block is burnt down, but God saved my house," the unnamed man says.

Dora Atwater Millikin and her husband own the Lahaina home in the images, the Los Angeles Times reported. The article said the house may have been unharmed because of recent renovations, including replacing the asphalt roof with heavy-gauge metal and removing nearby foliage. The Lahaina fires burned more than 2,000 homes and buildings and killed at least 102 people. 

We rate the claim that this photo comes from the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires False.

Our Sources

The Associated Press, Los Angeles wildfire deaths rise to 24 as more fierce winds are forecast, Jan. 13, 2025

Facebook post (archived), Jan. 13, 2025

Facebook post (archived), Jan. 12, 2025

Facebook post (archived), Jan. 12, 2025

Getty Images, US-FIRE-MAUI, Aug. 10, 2023

Instagram post, Jan. 9, 2025

Los Angeles Times, The real story behind that photo of a weirdly unscathed house in the rubble of Lahaina, Aug. 18, 2023

NPR, These houses survived one of the country’s worst wildfires, here’s how, Sept. 17, 2024

The New York Times, Death Toll of Maui Wildfire No at 102, Aug. 9, 2024

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by Sofia Ahmed

This photo doesn’t show a home that survived the Los Angeles wildfires. It was taken in Hawaii.

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