In a video posted by TikTok user Kieran Murray (@kieranknightley), he shows himself walking down the street, surrounded by firetrucks with their lights flashing. “The craziest thing just happened,” he says.
Murray had been out walking when he noticed what he thought was a building on fire. He shows a clip in his video– from a distance, it appears as though an apartment is on fire. He then shows firetrucks racing to the scene of the “fire,” their sirens blaring and horns honking loudly to clear the road.
However, when they got to the apartment, it turned out to be an 8-foot TV showing a video of a yule log, not an actual fire. “What would you have done?” Murray wrote in the video’s caption.
By Monday afternoon, Murray’s video had over 1.1 million views.
@kieranknightley What would you have done? #fire #firefighter #nycfire #fdny ♬ original sound – Kieran Murray
Several commenters were confused about the concept of a “yule log,” and why the video looked so realistic.
Yule log videos are popular on YouTube, often for use as background ambience. They feature a crackling wood fire in a fireplace, in 24-7 pre-recorded livestreams or in videos as long as ten hours. One popular yule log video has amassed 124 million views.
Many commenters assured Murray that he had done the right thing in calling 911, and that it’s better to be safe than sorry even if the yule log was a false alarm.
“You did the right thing,” one user wrote. “It’s genuinely better to have called and it be a false alarm than have an actual emergency unfold with everyone ignoring it.”
“As someone who has had an apt fire… thank you!” another shared.
“I’m a dispatcher for our fire department and stuff like this happens regularly,” another wrote. “Don’t feel bad, you did the right thing.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Murray via Instagram direct message.
