The massive wildfire that began on January 8 in Los Angeles, USA, remains uncontrollable, causing significant destruction. To date, the blaze has claimed at least 25 lives, burned approximately 37,800 acres of land, and destroyed more than 12,000 homes and structures.
Amid the devastation, a photo of a burned Oscar statuette lying in the rubble has gone viral on social media.

Check out Facebook posts containing the claim here (archive), here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).
Check out X posts containing the claim here (archive) and here (archive).
Actor Isabella Rossellini, who received critical acclaim for her performance in the 2024 film Concave, also posted the viral image on her Instagram account.
Fact-Check
An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team has revealed that the viral image is not real. It was created using artificial intelligence (AI).
Upon investigation, it was found that the image has been circulating online since at least January 12. At 9:37 PM Bangladesh time that day, the image was shared with the caption “Symbolism” in a subreddit called “pics.” However, the image was later removed due to allegations of violating the subreddit’s rules. The subreddit moderators suspected that the image was AI-generated. According to their rules, posting screenshots or AI-generated images is prohibited.

A Google reverse image search shows that the image was shared on January 12 in a Facebook group named AI Revolution – MidJourney AI, DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion. However, the image is no longer available in the group.
Further investigation, based on this lead, uncovered a Facebook post made on the morning of January 13 by an account named Ruston Banal. The post included a screenshot showing that a user named Grzech Morawski had shared the viral image in the AI Revolution group. According to Ruston, the image was created using Stable Diffusion technology and presented by Grzech Morawski.

Based on Ruston’s post, further investigation into the AI Revolution Facebook group for a profile named Grzech Morawski revealed that no such profile currently exists in the group. However, in a post by another individual, the same name was found tagged in the caption. Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that the profile’s name had been changed to Mora Grzegorz. This suggests that the profile previously known as Grzech Morawski was renamed to Mora Grzegorz after the image went viral.
Following this lead, an analysis of posts in the AI Revolution group under the new name Mora Grzegorz uncovered multiple AI-generated images (1,2) bearing the watermark Grzech Morawski shared from that profile.

When the Rumor Scanner team attempted to contact the profile for more information about the image, one of the team members was blocked by the profile.
Since January 13, the burned Oscar statuette has been falsely linked to American actor Robert Redford. However, a representative of Redford told Entertainment Weekly that the image is fake. The representative clarified that Redford is currently residing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Oscar depicted in the image does not belong to him.
In addition, Emmanuelle Saliba, Chief Investigation Officer at Get Real Labs, confirmed to PolitiFact that the image is not real. She explained that it was shared in a Facebook group focused on AI-generated images and digital art but was later removed. Her statement corresponds exactly with the findings of the Rumor Scanner team.
Therefore, it is confirmed that an AI-generated image is being falsely circulated as a real photo of an Oscar statuette burned in the Los Angeles wildfire. This claim is entirely false.
Sources
- Rumor Scanner’s investigation.
- Entertainment Weekly: Fake image of burnt Oscar goes viral amid L.A. wildfires — how Robert Redford and Isabella Rossellini are involved
- Politifact: This image of an Oscar statuette destroyed in Los Angeles fires is AI-generated