Fact Check: No evidence FEMA drill will cause phones to catch on fire

There is no evidence that mobile phones that receive a test alert issued by the U.S. Federal Emergency and Management Agency on Oct. 4 will catch on fire, despite the claim being shared online ahead of the drill.

On Oct. 4 at 2.20 p.m. ET, FEMA is scheduled to test its Emergency Alert System and its Wireless Emergency Alerts nationwide, where the former test alert will be sent to radios and televisions, while the latter will be sent to cell phones.

In the run-up to the drill, a claim was shared online that phones could catch on fire upon reception of the FEMA alert.

An account (@RealRawNews1) posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Oct.3 with a post that reads: “Note: This is a rumor and UNSUBSTANTIATED: White Hats have heard the frequency FEMA plans to use tomorrow could cause phones to catch fire. The source is reportedly disgruntled FEMA agents who relayed this info. I am passing this along as a memo, not fact.”

The X account is connected to the website Real Raw News that has a disclaimer that reads: “Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This website contains humor, parody, and satire.”

There is no evidence that phones could catch fire upon receiving the test alert.

The alert that will be sent to phones, the WEA alert, will be sent through the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) – the “same as those sent by more than 1,700 local, state, territorial and tribal authorities,” FEMA press secretary Jeremy Edwards said in an emailed statement sent to Reuters.

The IPAWS allows geographically targeted alerts to be sent by local authorities, per FEMA.

The WEA alerts are the same as those sent during extreme weather events and presidential alerts that can be sent during nationwide emergencies.

There are no credible news reports that phones previously caught fire upon reception of such alerts.

The audio signal that will be used in the national test “is the same combination of audio tones that has been used since 1963 in the original Emergency Broadcast System,” Edwards said.

One of the reasons for using these tones for the WEA messages sent to people’s phones is “because of the public familiarity with the tones and association with emergency alerting”, he added.

Examples of what the alert will look like on people’s phones can be seen in nationwide news coverage.

Reuters fact-checked other false claims circulating on social media ahead of the nationwide test that said the alarm would be able to reach switched off or out-of-service phones.

A spokesperson for Real Raw News did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

No evidence. There is no evidence that the FEMA test alert can set mobile phones ablaze. The claim stems from an X account linked to the Real Raw News website that has a disclaimer that content on its site contains “humor, parody and satire.”

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.    

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.