The Statement

As bushfires continue to burn across the east coast of Australia, numerous social media posts are claiming or suggesting the fires are part of a conspiracy to burn a path to construct a fast rail network.

One post by an Australian user from January 6, 2020 features three images including a one that compares a potential route for a high speed rail project between Melbourne and Brisbane with a map of the bushfires burning along the coast. The post also has a screenshot of a fast rail map connecting Melbourne and Brisbane and a detailed map showing a proposed corridor for a fast rail system.

The post, which claims “land is actually being cleared (by fires) to make way for the rail line” has been shared more than 870 times and attracted more than 300 reactions.

The Analysis

The bushfires in Australia have been burning since September 2019 in Queensland, with a state of emergency was declared in that state in November, and since then in NSW and Victoria. As of January 15, 2020, more than 17.1 million hectares have been burnt across the country, according to a statement to AAP FactCheck from the federal Department of Home Affairs.

Posts linking the 2019 Australian bushfires to a supposed plot to clear a path for a fast rail system began appearing in November 2019.

A similar theory was circulated in the United States in 2018 during the Californian bushfires where users claimed the wildfires were started to clear a path for the US state’s proposed high speed rail system.

Those claims were debunked by US fact checkers Snopes.