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.
The video, which shows plainclothes police arresting a woman who appears to be trying to set fire to a field, was shared on X on March 23, 2025.
It was shared as multiple wildfires burned for days in southeast South Korea (archived link). Thirty people have died in the fires, the country’s largest and deadliest on record, as of March 30 (archived link).
“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.
The clip’s caption claims the woman is Chinese, and asks: “How could she set a wildfire in broad daylight unless she is a spy?”
“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 from South Korea’s Constitutional Court (archived link).
Screenshot of the false X post, captured on March 28, 2025
The video was also shared in similar posts on YouTube, Threads and Facebook, and circulated against the background of a resurgence in anti-Chinese misinformation following Yoon’s botched attempt to impose martial law.
Yoon has defended his short-lived suspension of civilian rule by claiming external forces, North Korea, and anti-state elements were working together to threaten national security and sovereignty (archived link).
He also specifically accused unidentified Chinese individuals of flying a drone to photograph Seoul’s spy agency building as well as a US aircraft carrier docked in Busan.
As of March 31, however, there have been no official reports of the March 2025 wildfires being deliberately set by Chinese individuals.
Police in North Gyeongsang province told AFP they launched a probe 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).
The interior ministry has also said “sparks from a brush cutter” triggered 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).
2022 Busan arson suspect
A keyword search on YouTube led to the same footage published in October 2022 by South Korean media outlet Hello TV News (archived link).
Screenshot comparison of the video in the false post (left) and the same footage posted on YouTube in October 2022 (right)
According to a news report by South Korean broadcaster YTN, the video shows plainclothes officers — who were on a stakeout at a Busan ecopark following multiple fire reports — arresting a woman who placed a “paper towel soaked in cooking oil” in a field (archived link).
The Yonhap News Agency reported the arson suspect was given a suspended jail sentence in May 2023, with the woman’s dementia a mitigating factor (archived link).
No local media reports about the case said the woman was a Chinese national.
