‘SOMEONE IS ON FIRE’: False iPhone alert launches B.C. search and rescue effort for hiker safe at home

The emergency SOS feature on newer iPhones is shown in this image from Shutterstock.com.

A search and rescue team in B.C.’s Okanagan was puzzled after they received a concerning call for help last weekend, only to track the origin to a person sitting on the couch at home.

The Vernon Search and Rescue Group Society said it was asked to respond to an iPhone SOS message received via satellite, a feature on newer iPhone models.

The text read “THERE IS A FIRE, SOMEONE IS ON FIRE,” according to the group.

The GPS location pinged the hiker purportedly in need of urgent help in the Pinnacles Lake area, a few hours east of Vernon.

Vernon SAR dispatched six volunteers on road and four in a helicopter. While on the way, members at base attempted to contact the phone’s owner via satellite, text and call, and received updated GPS co-ordinates moving towards the trailhead.

As it turns out, the SOS message was a false alarm.

“You can imagine the surprise of our subject, who was sitting comfortably on their couch back at home, when we informed them they were actually still on the top of the mountain and likely had burns to care for!” the team wrote in a social media post.

The volunteers were left scratching their heads, but hypothesized the individual, who was hiking in the Pinnacles earlier that day, walked by an area burned by a wildfire on the way back to their car and their phone died right after.

“One might use this as a reminder that we can’t always trust technology, but the flip side is the proliferation of satellite technology has been a game-changer for improving our ability to respond swiftly and accurately to (generally) accurate locations of emergency, which more than makes up for the wee quirks here and there,” Vernon SAR wrote.

In an update Tuesday, Vernon SAR said since posting about the mysterious incident, it had heard from several other search and rescue teams in B.C. who received the exact same iPhone SOS message about someone on fire.

The team explained that iPhone 14s or newer have crash detection, which is on by default, and if the phone detects a movement similar to a severe car crash it will automatically send an SOS message with your co-ordinates unless you cancel it.

“In our instance, we now know that our subject’s phone battery died while on their hike. So our assumption is that perhaps there was some sort of fall or other action that the phone interpreted as a car crash and their phone sent an automatic SOS, but with no battery life left, there may not have been the opportunity for our subject to cancel the automatic emergency call nor respond to any potential follow-up,” the group wrote.

“This is not a conclusive answer by any means, but it’s close enough for us that we’re chalking this up as a learning experience and we’ve stopped investigating further.”

Vernon SAR reminded readers that they never charge for rescues and will always respond to calls for help, saying “although there are costs in terms of time and money for responding to false alarms, we’d much prefer to err on the side of caution when life and/or limb might be at stake.”

To avoid any potential “boy who cried wolf” scenarios, the organization cautioned hikers to always travel with a power bank charger so they can cancel an erroneous SOS before their phone dies, and if the phone sends a false alarm to stay on the line to explain it was a mistake.

“We can only hope that if our call did originate through this feature, that the technology will continue to evolve and refinements will continue over time as it proliferates out to more of the population,” the team wrote.