Lighthouse Journalism came across a video being widely shared on social media platforms. The video featured a traffic signal which was seen melting. It was claimed along with the video that this was a result of the heatwave in Europe where temperatures are around 40 degrees.
During the investigation we found that the viral clip consists of visuals from two incidents and they are not linked to the recent heatwave. The viral claim is misleading.
Claim:
Instagram user newsonscroll shared the viral video with misleading claim. The video had 39.9K likes.
Other users too were sharing the same video with same claim.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by running a Google keyword search. We did not find any credible news reports stating that the lights melted due to heatwave in Europe.
We then downloaded the video and uploaded it in the InVid tool, extracting the keyframes from the video.
We first ran a Google reverse image search on the visuals that appear at the beginning in the video.
We found that the image appeared in an article published on www.ilbacodaseta.org.
The media website called the article “fake news”. The article explained the incident. It said, “A piece of news—a traffic light melted due to the scorching temperatures of recent days— has been making the rounds across Italy, and even half of Europe.”
The report further said: The problem, however, is that heat has nothing to do with that melting. Or rather, heat has something to do with it, but not the heat produced by the sun. In fact, last Tuesday, June 23rd, around dinnertime, a car caught fire in Lugagnano right under that traffic light . A serious blaze forced local police to divert traffic and the fire department to intervene to contain the flames and restore safety. It’s a story that only Baco has covered , exclusively.
The same news media organisation had earlier covered the news of fire.
The article said: Around 6:45 PM today, flames suddenly erupted in the heart of Lugagnano , right at the main traffic light on Via 26 Aprile . It was a powerful scene, one that rivets your gaze and instantly transforms a normal traffic flow into a panic zone, with smoke billowing, a blocked roadway, and fear spreading to those nearby.
A car caught fire along one of the country’s busiest intersections. The scene, as you can see from the images, is shocking, but so far there have been no injuries or damage beyond the vehicle involved. A crucial detail in a situation that could have had far more serious consequences.
We then ran a reverse image search on the second visual which was being shared in the viral video.
We found that the visual was from Germany. We found a fact check article, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), which is a German Press Agency.
The report stated: The traffic light is located at an intersection in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, near the Spree River.
The report further stated: “The grounds of a club, where a fire broke out in June 2025, are located on the street corner . Eyewitness videos published by Berlin media show that the outdoor area directly adjacent to the street was engulfed in flames.”
It further said, “Was the traffic light possibly damaged by this fire? In response to an inquiry from the German Press Agency, a spokesperson for InfraSignal, the state-owned company responsible for Berlin’s traffic lights, confirmed that this was indeed the cause.”
We also found a video on YouTube channel of Tagesspiegel about the club fire.
We also found a detailed news report about the club fire.
In this article, an image was captioned: The traffic light system, which failed due to the fire, will be repaired on Thursday afternoon.
Conclusion: The video of melting traffic lights, widely shared with claims of being from Europe amidst the heatwave actually consists of visuals from two different fire incidents. The viral claim is misleading.
