Did Morocco really send Canadair planes to battle Spain's wildfires?

This weekend, social media buzzed with claims that Morocco dispatched four Canadair planes to assist in battling forest fires ravaging parts of Spain.

These assertions were shared by both Spanish and Moroccan accounts, including the Spanish Facebook page «Fuengirolasequeja», which posted that «Morocco has sent four Canadair planes to help fight the fires in the Madrid and Ávila regions».

Spanish citizens appeared in videos expressing gratitude to Morocco for its supposed backing. One individual claimed the Moroccan government had deployed four aircraft to assist with the fires in the Madrid area, alleging it was «information the Spanish media will not report».

False visuals suggest Morocco's involvement

Moroccan accounts propagated the story further, with some crafting videos using artificial intelligence to depict Canadair planes adorned with the Moroccan flag soaring over fire-affected zones.

In response, Spain’s fact-checking portal «Newtral» confirmed these reports were baseless. They clarified that one video cited as proof of Morocco’s participation actually depicted a French aircraft taking off from the Rhône River near Vallabrègues lock, intended for a fire in Lédenon, France.

Analysis of the footage revealed the words «Sécurité civile» on the aircraft, confirming it was a «Canadair CL-415» belonging to France's Civil Security under the French Interior Ministry.

The platform added that this video's earliest publications date back to early July, coinciding with fires in southern France, not the mid-July fires in Spain.

Spain’s Interior Ministry informed Newtral that, as of July 26, Morocco had not dispatched any air or ground resources to assist. Instead, Spain received aid from Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Turkey.

After one of the misleading posts on X was reposted by Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente, it was later deleted.

Meanwhile, the Spanish newspaper La Razón questioned why the Spanish government hadn’t sought aid from Morocco, given the magnitude of the fires. The paper highlighted the potential of Morocco's fleet of eight Canadair aircraft, noting that all assistance is valuable in such a national crisis.