Authorities Arrest Suspect in Palisades Fire Investigation

Officials have put a face to the start of the deadly Palisades Fire.

Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old former Uber driver living in Florida, has been arrested and charged with federal arson for allegedly setting a fire in January that became the Palisades blaze, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Rinderknecht, who reportedly lived in the L.A. area before moving to Florida this year, allegedly dropped off a passenger in the Pacific Palisades near where a fire was later discovered to have started just after midnight on Jan. 1. The 29-year-old purportedly walked up a hiking trail, took videos on his phone and listened to a rap song, “Un Zder, Un The” by French artist Josman, with a music video showing “objects being lit on fire,” Bill Essayli, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, said, according to Bloomberg and ABC News.

Environmental sensors detected the beginnings of a fire in the early morning hours of Jan. 1, and Rinderknecht himself called 911 to report the fire. He allegedly fled the scene but returned after seeing fire trucks driving back up to where it started.

“The fire continued to smolder and burn underground within the root structure of the dense vegetation,” Essayli said. “So that fire started on Jan. 1, and it smoldered underground for about a week until on Jan. 7. Heavy winds caused this underground fire to surface and spread above ground, causing what became known as the Palisades Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles city history.”

When federal authorities seized Rinderknecht’s digital devices, they found an AI-generated image from Chat GPT depicting a burning city. The accused arsonist moved to Florida “because he was aware that people might be looking for him,” Essayli said.

Investigators spent months tracking down the fire’s origins and even re-staged the blaze in an attempt to learn more about how it started. Kenny Cooper, Assistant Special Agent in Charge for the San Francisco Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Rinderknecht bears sole responsibility for the kindling of the fire.

“That fire burned deep within the ground, in roots and in structure, and remained active for several days,” Cooper said, per the L.A. Times. “No matter how good they are, they can’t see that, right?”

Those who dealt with Rinderknecht knew him to be a relatively reserved person. ”He kept to himself,” one anonymous neighbor told the Times.

Another former neighbor, 39-year-old Peter Chang of Hollywood, was shocked to learn Rinderknecht was accused of lighting the fire. “He was actually a really nice guy,” Chang said.

A former roommate who lived with Rinderknecht in the Palisades didn’t believe the suspect would do such a thing. “I can only tell you the Jonathan I know would never do anything like that,” the anonymous roommate told the Times. He noted that Rinderknecht would sometimes “just start talking fast and get bratty with people who confronted him. But he wouldn’t get violent; he would maybe just smoke some pot and go to sleep.”

Rinderknecht’s preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 17.

— Chris Malone Méndez