It is understandable that the world is really concerned on the deadly bushfires in Australia, but just as a wild fire, fake news also burn across the net. Several articles and images were actually outdated or miscaptioned.

The circulating image is NOT actually a photo, but an enhanced graph showing the bushfire-affected areas in Australia from Dec. 5, 2019-January 5, 2020.

A closer look from the image will show the tell-tale signs that it is not really a photo taken from space: the islands surrounding Australia are missing, the clouds are not present, and intensity of bushfires makes them more of "pools of lava" rather than burning vegetation.

While the data comes from a credible source (NASA), the graph doesn't necessarily show the actual spatial extent of the wildfires and NOT all of those are currently burning.

"Given the nature of misinformation, it can spread wildly, much like bushfire can," - Dr Andrea Carson, Political Communication expert from La Trobe University

Here's how misinformation spread like wildfires.

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