For nearly two weeks in May, BC Wildfire Service's feed on Facebook was suddenly slammed with an unprecedented number of conspiracy-laden comments, many claiming — falsely — that fires burning in the province at that time were set by arsonists.

Dozens of the posts put the blame on environmentalists and the Liberals, suggesting the fires were part of a plot to justify authoritarian rule. The comments hint at a common conspiracy theory that posits a cabal of global elites are using climate action to justify controlling people and kicking them off their land.

“I see we’re back into arson season,” commented one Facebook user, Brian Demyon. “Guess our governments need to have harsher penalties for the environmentalists who like to start fires. A little hard when there [sic] payed [sic] by the government.”

“Got the crazies burning people out, they will evacuate and go take your guns,” added Facebook user Deborah Madison.

“So the Liberals got in again, so I predict arson summer … Then they could call it Global warming and taxes [sic] even more,” wrote an account under the name Glen Brewer.

Then, the comments stopped, as abruptly as they started. Facebook traffic data the BC Wildfire Service shared with Canada’s National Observer shows that between April 30 and May 5 views on the service’s page jumped from an average of under 100,000 per day to over 1.5 million views around May 1 before falling back to under 100,000 two weeks later after May 15.

The concentration of traffic was unusual, but the content was familiar. “It was all the conspiracy theories that we usually get sprinkled through our comments — but hundreds, thousands for two weeks, and then it was done,” said Strong.