McDonald's Burned Down

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About

McDonald's Burned Down refers to viral video of a American fast food restaurant, McDonald's in Los Angeles that catches fires during the 2025 Los Angeles Palisades Fires. Recorded by American journalist, Stuart Palley, the video gained popular with discussions and edits.

Origin

On January 9th, 2025, Stuart Palley via his Instagram^[1] account uploaded video of McDonald's getting burned during the Los Angeles Palisades Fires, showing the strong wind helping the fire to burn everything around it. The video received more than 1.8 million likes in four days (shown below).

The wind gusts are devastating. Truly a hurricane of fire.

Video: stuartpalley</a> <a href="https://t.co/b2fprFAgTC">pic.twitter.com/b2fprFAgTC</a></p>— Dr. Lucky Tran (luckytran) January 9, 2025

Spread

Starting early January 2025, the video gained popular with discussions and memes on Twitter / X. For example on January 9th, 2025, Twitter / X^[2] user @0xD06F00D uploaded quote retweet of @luckytran's post who reposted the video with caption criticizing the plants replacement that easy to burn. The post received more than 285,000 likes in four days (shown below).

imported exotic plants that replaced native fire retardant ones burning down in front of a mcdonalds from a hellstorm caused by decades of unchecked corporate greed is just cinema https://t.co/dCvmpWrTQ8
— Morgan (Morgan)🔆 (@0xD06F00D) January 9, 2025

On January 9th, 2025, Twitter / X^[3] user @kuadcities uploaded an edit by adding back sound to the video. The post received more than 40,000 likes in four days (shown below).

One of our Embassies has been attacked.
We commence Strikes within the hour.
God Bless America. pic.twitter.com/O3iQ1Xp5ln
— 🔫/k/uadcities (@kuadcities) January 9, 2025

On January 10th, 2025 Twitter / X^[4] user @RadarFennec uploaded an edit of the video to make it looks like video game interface. The post received more than 84,000 likes in three days (shown below).

Alright oomfies. Time to squad up and make this server ours. pic.twitter.com/4chkO9eXmI
— Fennec_Radar (@RadarFennec) January 9, 2025

On the same day, Twitter / X^[5] user @TopGyaru uploaded Kyoufuu All Back edit using the video and received more than 51,000 likes in three days (shown below).