A clip of a Los Angeles police officer converting to Islam was filmed more than a year before massive wildfires devastated the city in January 2025, not "after he saw that Muslims' houses didn't burn" as was claimed in Indonesian-language social media posts. The footage was originally shared by an Indonesian celebrity in November 2023.

"Los Angeles police officer converted to Islam," read the Indonesian-language caption of a TikTok video shared on January 25, 2025.

The video shows an imam guiding a man in uniform as he recites the Islamic shahada, or declaration of faith.

According to text superimposed on the video, the police officer in the United States' second largest city converted to Islam "after he saw that Muslims' houses didn't burn during the Los Angeles wildfires".

The video was shared elsewhere on TikTok and Facebook in posts that linked the officer's conversion to what he witnessed during the devastating wildfires which burned for more than three weeks in Southern California in January 2025, killing about 30 people and displacing thousands more (archived link).

The Palisades and Eaton fires were the most destructive in the history of Los Angeles County, burning more than 37,000 acres (150 square kilometres) and over 10,000 homes, causing damage estimated to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

The video circulating online, however, was filmed more than a year before the LA wildfires.

The posts also build on earlier false claims, debunked by AFP, about "miracle...

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