Skip to main content

Fact check: Fire department saved Kansas house from 2017 wildfire, not just sprinklers

Kate S. Petersen   | Paste BN

The claim: A photo shows a house saved from a wildfire by sprinklers

Some social media users are sharing a photo they say shows a home saved from a 2017 Kansas wildfire by a sprinkler system. 

The photo shows a house with a green lawn surrounded by acres of burned land.

"In March 2017, a home was spared from a deadly wildfire in southwest Kansas because the homeowner turned his water sprinklers on before leaving to escape wildfire. He came home to this," reads the caption in an April 6 Facebook post. 

The post received more than 600 interactions within nine days. Paste BN found versions of the claim on Facebook dating back to 2017.

Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks

But the post doesn't tell the whole story. While the homeowner told Paste BN she left sprinklers running when the family fled, the local fire department also took steps to save the house after the family evacuated. 

Paste BN reached out to the Facebook users who shared the claim for comment. One social media user who shared the post, from the Facebook page U.S. Army W.T.F! moments, acknowledged sprinklers were not the only factor in saving the home.

Fire department defended house

The homeowner, Danielle Tajchman, told Paste BN that her family had been running the sprinklers for weeks due to their grazing cows. She also said they left the sprinklers running when they fled the property.

However, she said she learned afterward that firefighters intervened in an attempt to save the house shortly after her family evacuated.

In 2017, Tajchman told The Wichita Eagle that firefighters soaked "everything" in water and set a backburn to combat the blaze. She said  the firefighters were "the real heroes." 

Doug Schmitt, who at the time was an assistant fire chief for the fire department that battled the blaze, told Paste BN that firefighters at the Riley County Fire District #1 intervened on behalf of the house. 

He said the firefighters soaked both the house and the detached garage with water after the family fled. 

He also stated this in a Facebook comment in 2017 when the Kansas National Guard posted the photo of the house.  

Fact check: Photo of children saluting Ukrainian troops is from 2016

Our rating: Partly false

Based on our research, we rate PARTLY FALSE the claim that a photo shows a house saved from a wildfire by sprinklers. The homeowner said she left sprinklers running, but that action isn't solely responsible for saving the house as the post asserts. The fire department also worked to save the property.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

Facebook Twitter Email