Reporting from Douma, Syria, in April 2018 on the Douma chemical attack, Fisk quoted a Syrian doctor who attributed the victims' breathing problems not to gas but to dust and lack of oxygen after heavy shelling by Assad forces. Other people he spoke to doubted a gas attack, and Fisk queried the incident. Richard Spencer and Catherine Philp in "The Times" wrote that journalists had been taken to Douma on a government-organised trip while international investigators were forced to remain in Damascus. The Snopes website said other reporters on the same trip as Fisk had interviewed locals who said they had inhaled toxic gas.