By: Christian Haag
August 18 2023
Obamas and other celebrities' estates and mansions survived the Maui fires not because they were directed
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
Obama, Bezos and Gaga do not own property on or close to the fires on Maui, there is no proof that the fires were directed arson.
Claim ID 6bd05669
Context
Claims that properties in Maui, Hawaii, owned by prominent celebrities including the Obamas were not affected by the recent wildfires are spreading on social media. Posts on X by Dom Lucre, a known conspiracy theorist, read “BREAKING: The Obamas estate was spared from the Maui fires in Hawaii. Out of all of the destruction in Hawaii, not a single blade of grass was burned at the Obama estate.”
Dom Lucre made similar posts about Jeff Bezos and Lady Gaga. These posts sparked several related conspiratorial comments that the fires were caused by arson from direct energy weapons since the elite's mansions and estates were not hit by the fires. Claims have also been made that the fires are part of a land grab by elites to begin building a 15-minute city.
In fact
However, the claim is false. The fires have been concentrated on the Island of Maui near the city of Lahaina, the community of Kula, and Pulehu-Kihei. The estates of Obama, Bezos, and Lady Gaga are not located close to the fires.
Using media reporting and NASA Fire information and resource management system (FIRMS), Logically Facts measured the distance from the fires to the different celebrities' estates, thus ruling out they were close or not.
Barack Obama's Estate is situated on the island of Oahu, the same island on which Honolulu lies, roughly 110.32 km (68.55 mi) from point to point as the bird flies.
Jeff Bezos's estate lies at La Perouse Bay at the southwestern edge of Maui, roughly 18.6 km from the closest fire at Pulehu-Kihei.
Lady Gaga does not own property in Hawaii. She has houses in Hollywood Hills, Malibu, and New York.
The event has also sparked new false claims about 15-minute cities. Since 2022, claims have been made that global elites are attempting to limit the freedoms and liberty of regular people by placing them in ghetto-like cities called 15-minute cities. This has become a narrative and conspiratorial talking point over the course of the year, which Logically Facts has repeatedly debunked.
The verdict
Since the estates owned by Obama, Bezos, and Gaga are situated far away from the fires, we have marked these claims as false.