What was claimed
Images show major bushfires across Australia and New Zealand.
Our verdict
False. The images show fires in US state of Georgia.
AAP FACTCHECK - Foreign-run Facebook pages are circulating fabricated warnings about massive fires blazing across Australia and New Zealand.
The posts share photos of fires in the US alongside false information about evacuation orders.
Emergency services in both countries confirmed no alerts were issued when the posts appeared
A post by a Facebook page called Rugby Battle Stories claimed that a massive bushfire triggered mandatory evacuations for the NSW Blue Mountains region just after midnight on April 26, 2026.
"CRITICAL ALERT: New South Wales is under threat tonight as a massive bushfire rages out of control, defying all containment efforts,” the post reads.
“Authorities have issued a MANDATORY EVACUATION for multiple areas — this is no longer a warning; it is a desperate race against time.”
The post includes three photos of the supposed fire.
A Google reverse search reveals they show US incidents.
Facebook’s page transparency feature also shows that the page is run by users in Vietnam.
One image shows an aerial view of a large forest fire that Georgia state fire authorities had earlier posted on Facebook on April 23.
A second image showing plumes of smoke rising behind a house appeared in a HuffPost article about a fire in Georgia on April 20.
The third image shows firefighters hosing down a house fire.
The truck in the photo features US-style chevron patterns on its rear rather than the checkered pattern used on NSW trucks.
The NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) also did not issue any fire alerts for the Blue Mountains on April 26.
The RFS Fires Near Me website records no bushfires in the region in April 2026.
Another Vietnamese-run Facebook page posted the same bushfire warning and images on April 25, but claimed they were in Auckland, New Zealand.
This claim is also false.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand did not report any major wildfires or evacuation plans in Auckland on that date.
The Auckland City - Fire and Emergency NZ Facebook page also made no mention of a blaze on that date.
Similar Facebook pages have also posted similar fake alerts for locations across the US, Canada and Europe.
The posts link to suspicious external websites strewn with fake news stories and ads.
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