This week, Oklahoma City NBC-affiliate KFOR posted a photo sent in by a viewer on its Facebook page that showed a collection of street lamps that had been melted by extreme heat. The image quickly went viral and the consensus was that record high temperatures in the area had melted the lamps.
It turns out, though, that the melting was actually caused by a recent dumpster fire that occurred underneath the lamps.
Deleting the original lamp post, KFOR posted a photo of the dumpster fire on its Facebook page Thursday.
“Thanks to Joel Pennie for setting us straight on the melted street lamp in Stillwater,” the post states. “The cause was not the Oklahoma heat but a burning dumpster over the weekend. We are posting Joel’s picture so you can see the real culprit.”
OKC CBS-affiliate KWTV also posted photos of the melted street lamps on its Facebook page this week. Like KFOR, KWTV issued a correction, stating the real cause of the melting.
“While temperatures reached a record high in Stillwater Wednesday,” reads a post on KWTV’s website, “it wasn’t the weather that melted fixtures on a street lamp. It was a fire.”
Here’s an image of the dumpster fire…