A video of a massive fire engulfing a high-rise building is being circulated with a false claim that it shows a recent Iranian drone attack on a building in the United Arab Emirates.
BOOM found that the footage is old and shows a fire at a residential building in Sharjah, UAE, in 2015.
Iran carried out a series of drone and missile attacks in the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain, followed by a joint military offensive by the US and Israel. The military conflict took place after the Donald Trump-led US government threatened Iran to reach a deal on its nuclear programme and later launched attacks on the country on February 28, pushing the entire Middle East region into turmoil.
The Claim
A verified X user shared the video with the caption: “Dubai continues to burn as Iran strikes.”
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Zee News also shared the video, reporting that it shows an Iranian attack on the CIA headquarters in the UAE.
What We Found: Video Is From 2015 Fire Incident
1. Visual Is Old: We first broke the video into keyframes and ran a reverse image search using Google Lens. The search led us to a similar photo of the same building on fire, which was reported on October 1, 2015, by UAE based news outlet The National. The article reported that a fire broke out at the Abdul Naser building on King Faisal Road in Sharjah, forcing residents to flee their homes.
We compared the visuals in the viral video with a 2015 photo of the incident and found that the buildings match.
On October 1, 2015, The National published a video of the fire incident on its official YouTube channel.
2. The Fire Incident: On October 1, 2015, The Associated Press reported that Lt. Col. Saeed al-Suwaidi, who was serving as the Sharjah Civil Defense incident commander at the time, said 19 people received treatment for smoke inhalation and 250 households were impacted by the blaze. The report added that the fire broke out in a residential building near City Centre Sharjah and was brought under control by night.
A video report by Gulf News covering the incident can be watched below.