As South Korea battled unprecedented wildfires that ravaged large areas of the country’s southeast in March 2025, a video was shared in social media posts that falsely claimed it showed a Chinese woman starting one of the deadly blazes. The video has in fact circulated since October 2022 in reports about a woman being arrested on suspicion of arson at an ecopark in Busan. Local news reports from the time say she was given a suspended jail sentence.<\/h3>\n
The video, which shows plainclothes police arresting a woman who appears to be trying to set fire to a field, was shared on\u00a0X<\/a> on March 23, 2025.<\/p>\n It was shared as multiple wildfires<\/a> burned for days in southeast South Korea (archived link<\/a>). Thirty people<\/span> have died in the fires, the country’s largest and deadliest<\/a> on record, as of March 30 (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n “Why on earth is she doing this? The arrest of arsonist at Hwamyeong Eco Park,” read Korean-language text superimposed on the video, with credit given to Busan police.<\/p>\n The clip’s caption claims the woman is Chinese<\/span>, and asks: “How could she set a wildfire in broad daylight unless she is a spy?”<\/p>\n “It is likely she started the blaze to stir up social unrest as people now say President Yoon’s case would be dismissed or rejected?” it adds, referring to a pending decision<\/a> from South Korea’s Constitutional Court\u00a0(archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n Screenshot of the false X post, captured on March 28, 2025<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The video was also shared in similar posts on\u00a0YouTube<\/a>, Threads<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>, and circulated against the background of a resurgence in anti-Chinese misinformation following Yoon’s botched attempt to impose martial law.<\/p>\n Yoon has defended his short-lived\u00a0suspension of civilian rule<\/a> by claiming external forces, North Korea, and anti-state elements were working together to threaten national security and sovereignty (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n He also specifically accused<\/a>\u00a0unidentified Chinese individuals of flying a drone to photograph Seoul’s spy agency building as well as a US aircraft carrier docked in Busan.<\/p>\n As of March 31, <\/span>however, there have been no official reports of the March 2025 wildfires being deliberately set by Chinese individuals.<\/p>\n Police in North Gyeongsang province told AFP they launched a probe<\/a> into a 56-year-old man who is suspected of mistakenly starting a fire while tending to his grandparents’ gravesites on March 22 in Uiseong — the hardest hit region with 12,800 hectares of its woodland affected (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The interior ministry has also said “sparks from a brush cutter” triggered<\/a> some of the fires. The flames have been fanned by high winds and ultra-dry conditions, with the southeast experiencing below-average rains for months after South Korea experienced its hottest year on record in 2024 (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n A keyword search<\/a> on YouTube led to the same footage<\/a> published in October 2022 by South Korean media outlet Hello TV News (archived link<\/a>).<\/p>\n2022 Busan arson suspect<\/h3>\n