No, this video doesn’t show a Pfizer lab on fire in Madrid
If your time is short
- According to Pfizer and news reports, this fire happened at a composting factory in Madrid, not at Pfizer’s manufacturing plant there.
In a video that’s being shared on Facebook, flames and a plume of smoke crown a building across a field. According to several posts, it’s a “Pfizer lab in Madrid on fire.”
But that’s wrong, according to the company and Spanish news reports.
These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Pfizer has a plant in San Sebastián de los Reyes in Madrid, but there wasn’t a fire there, Andrew Widger, a spokesperson for the company, told PolitiFact. Rather, he said, the video shows a fire at a nearby composting factory that was caused by lightning.
On Sept. 2, the same day the video of the fire was shared online, a translation of a Spanish-language Europa Press story said that “lightning has caused the fire of a large pile of branches and remains of trees and vegetation in a composting factory … in San Sebastián de los Reyes.”
A city emergency agency had tweeted a video of the fire the day before.
We rate this post False.
Our Sources
Bitchute post, Sept. 2, 2021
Europa Press, Lightning causes a fire in a composting factory in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Sept. 2, 2021
112 Comunidad Madrid tweet, Sept. 1, 2021
Email interview with Andrew Widger, senior director of global media relations, Pfizer, Sept. 7, 2021
