WHAT WAS CLAIMED
Victorian bushfire footage shows destroyed homes amid intact trees and bushes.
OUR VERDICT
False. The footage shows charred vegetation and damaged trees, consistent with the aftermath of a bushfire.
AAP FACTCHECK - Trees and bushes have been damaged and destroyed in one state's bushfires, despite claims on social media.
Footage and other images shared online clearly show burnt grassland, bushes and trees in Victoria.
Experts say the damage is consistent with the type of blaze that has raged in the state this summer.
More than 413,000 hectares have been burnt across Victoria and more than 1000 structures have been damaged or destroyed.
However, posts claim footage shows that only buildings have been destroyed while trees and bushes remain intact near the town of Lockwood, in central Victoria.
They suggest this is evidence of a plot to remove homes to make way for planned renewable energy projects, or of the use of directed-energy weapons, which destroy targets with focused energy rather than projectiles, such as lasers.
One claim appears in a Facebook post sharing drone footage, originally published by The Australian newspaper, of the devastation at Lockwood.
"Over 120 Structures burned to the ground alongside allegedly over 300,000 Hectares of Australian Wild Bush," the caption states.
"Now the weird part….Once again only the buildings look to have been completely destroyed - Homes made of bricks, concrete and steel whilst all the Trees & Bushes surrounding each home remain entirely intact."
Another post shares the same footage with the text: "Here we go again.. Australia being targeted by DEW (direct energy weapons)".
However, contrary to the claims, the video depicts extensive damage to trees and bushland.
A wide shot (timestamp 33 seconds) shows scorched grassland across the entire surrounding area.
Closer frames (timestamp 0:13 and 0:28) show charred tree trunks.
Jason Sharples, a bushfire behaviour expert at the University of NSW, said that while many tree canopies are still green in the video, this is consistent with the way blazes move during high winds.
"When winds are really strong they push the flames close to the ground – so while the flames are quite long, flame heights are low," Professor Sharples told AAP FactCheck.
"The same can be expected of embers – they will propagate close to the ground."
Prof Sharples said ground vegetation, tree trunks and houses were burned either by direct flame contact or by embers piling up against the walls of structures.
"Ignition of the canopy requires a lot of heat to be going up into the trees," he said.
"This doesn't happen if the winds are leaning the flames over close to the ground."
A NSW government website distinguishes between surface fires and "crown fires" that burn through tree canopies.
"Surface fires are low to high intensity fires that burn on the surface of the ground," it states.
"The tree canopy may be scorched but does not burn to the extent that it will carry a fire."
Fire ecologists define three types of blazes, including surface fires, crown fires and ground fires - which burn subsurface soils such as peat - on Charles Darwin University's fire information website.
Rick McRae, an expert in the bushfire research group at UNSW, said it was not abnormal to see green tree canopies in fire-hit areas.
Even when canopies don't burn, he said, they can still get singed by fire and turn brown, as shown in the footage (timestamp 0:37).
"This type of fire was predicted to occur," Adjunct Prof McRae told AAP FactCheck.
"The damage on the landscape is consistent. There are no inconsistencies with what fire science and my own fire experience tells me should be seen."
Aside from the drone footage, there are numerous images from the fires showing damaged trees and vegetation.
Some images clearly show the fire spreading through trees and vegetation, while others depict severely damaged trees and vegetation with nearby houses remaining intact.
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