The location where the "Disaster Girl" meme photo was taken

This is the location where the photograph for the "Disaster Girl" meme was taken.

It is situated at 112 West Holt Street in Mebane, North Carolina.

The image was taken by Dave Roth during a controlled house fire in January 2005.

The Mebane Fire Department had set the vacant house ablaze as part of a training exercise.

That day, the Roth family was at home watching TV when they suddenly heard fire sirens. After looking outside and seeing smoke billowing up into the sky, they decided to walk over to the location and see what was happening. However, before they left, Dave decided to grab his new camera.

The girl in the photo is Dave's daughter, Zoe, whom he had asked to smile. At the time, she was just five years old.

The image went viral three years later after it was shared on websites such as BuzzFeed, Digg, eBaum's World, and Reddit.

Zoe's "evil smile" caught the attention of photoshoppers, who started to superimpose her face onto images of disasters such as shipwrecks, plane crashes, and even the atomic bomb.

Later, people began to add captions to the image, such as:

"My parents wouldn't take me to McDonald's. So I decided to have a barbecue."

The meme remained popular until mid-2011, when interest in it gradually started to decline.

Photos

Photos of the lot and other related images.

Then and now

The Google Street View image at the bottom was taken in March 2016—more than 11 years after Dave Roth snapped the original photo.

The red fire hydrant is visible in both pictures.

Notably, it wasn't a "real" fire, as the owner had donated their vacant house to the Mebane Fire Department.

This is a common practice in many towns, as it is a win-win for both parties. The owner gets their vacant property demolished, while the fire department gets to train their personnel in a real-world burning exercise.