FACT CHECK: Viral Image Of Rainbow Fire Hydrant Is AI-Generated

A viral image featured in a video shared on Instagram purports to show a rainbow fire hydrant.

Verdict: False

The image was originally posted on Instagram by a satire account on Jan. 9. An artificial intelligence (AI) expert denied the image’s authenticity in an email to Check Your Fact.

Fact Check:

A brush fire ignited in the Sepulveda Pass near the I-405 Freeway on Wednesday, according to CBS News. The fire, which was reported after 11:00 p.m., consumed over 20 acres of brush, the outlet reported.

The image featured in the Instagram video purports to show a rainbow fire hydrant.

“No water, but look how pretty it is,” the text overlay that appears on the video reads. “The paint job cost 341,000 dollars [sic] per hydrant,” a second set of text overlay follows. The Instagram post has received over 10,000 likes as of writing.

The claim is false, as the image was originally posted on Instagram by satire account @rivercitypd on Jan. 9.

“Thank goodness, the River city fire department [sic] painted fire hydrants in River city [sic] in a paint scheme that can grab the attention of anyone needing to get to a fire hydrant quickly. We do believe that our fire hydrants are saving lives in the fire [sic] is affecting our community right now. Chief Sharris (they/them),” the original post’s caption reads.

The account indicates it is a “satire page” and “River City Police is a fictional city that the California POST uses to depict in training videos” via its bio. (RELATED: No, This Video Does Not Show Firefighters Rescuing Dogs From Los Angeles Fire)

Likewise, Check Your Fact did not find the image referenced on the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD)’s website or its verified social media accounts. Check Your Fact also did not find the image included in any credible news reports about the recent wildfires impacting California.

Actually, the opposite is true. On Jan. 22, USA Today debunked the claim. According to the outlet, the image was created using AI.

Check Your Fact conducted a content detection scan using the website, “Hive Moderation,” and the results of the scan indicated the image was only 0.5% likely to have been AI-generated. However, it is important to note that AI image detectors can be tricked by adding grain, or texture to a photo, which reduces the detector’s accuracy, according to Business Insider.

Furthermore, Dr. Walter Scheirer, an AI expert at the University of Notre Dame, denied the image’s authenticity in an email to Check Your Fact.

“It is highly likely that the fire hydrant image was generated by AI. I ran a version of the photo that was posted as a still image to a different Instagram account through 14 different AI image detectors that examine different aspects of AI-generated imagery. Eight of them indicated a 100% likelihood that the image is fake. I avoided analyzing the video because the recapture impacts the accuracy of the detectors. Further, other versions of the fire hydrant image circulating on social media contain a Grok watermark, which is X’s generative AI feature. Finally, the hydrant doesn’t look serviceable — the outlet that is visible is an odd shape. It is also unclear what the object sitting next to it is (it could be a rendering artifact of the AI system),” Scheirer said.