After sending 15 strike crews from Oregon to California to help battle the raging fires in Los Angeles, it took no time at all for misinformation (aka ‘straight up lies’) to run rampant on social media after the fire trucks stopped in San Francisco. A press release from the Oregon Fire Marshal is calling out the misinformation that isn’t being fact-checked in many instances and is asking people to help spread the truth.
To see examples of the thousands upon thousands of posts sharing the flat out lies, just search ‘California emissions’ into the search bar on any social network. What you’ll find are posts from people falsely claiming these fire engines sent from Oregon were stopped/delayed in San Francisco for emissions checks which are required on vehicles in California. That is not at all what happened. Don’t fall for the lies.
The press release comes out swinging and starts with “we want to clear up confusion about our Oregon firefighters and equipment sent to California to help with the wildfires. There is misinformation spreading on social media and from some news outlets claiming our equipment had to pass emissions tests and our equipment and firefighters were turned away or delayed. TO BE CLEAR: THIS IS FALSE .”…