After Wednesday's arrest of Jonathan Rinderknecht in connection with the deadly Palisades Fire, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that there was finally "closure" for Pacific Palisades residents, but nothing could be further from the truth. The arrest provided answers about the fire's origin, but created a lot more questions.
A criminal complaint charging Rinderknecht with intentionally setting the blaze states that it started just after midnight on January 1, 2025, and was contained by the Los Angeles Fire Department within a day or two, depending upon which LAFD official was speaking. A firebrand became seated in dense vegetation and smoldered and burned in the roots underground for nearly a week until January 7, when the predicted windstorm brought embers to the surface. By the next morning, most of Pacific Palisades was gone.
DIVE DEEPER: Palisades Fire Determined to Be Arson; Arrest Made
According to federal investigators, Rinderknecht used a lighter that was found in his glove compartment to light the blaze, and it was not caused by teenagers setting off fireworks for the new year, as had been rumored.
Ed Norskog, former head of the LA County Sheriff's Department arson unit, told the Los Angeles Times:
“This affidavit puts the responsibility on the fire department. There needs to be a commission examining why this rekindled fire was allowed to reignite.
"The arsonist set the first fire, but the Fire Department proactively has a duty to do certain things.”
From the beginning, Pacific Palisades residents have suspected that the Palisades Fire wasn't a new ignition, but a flare-up of the January 1 fire. At a January 16, 2025, community meeting, LAFD Assistant Chief Joe Everett told residents that the January 1 fire "was dead out" before January 7.
LAFD Assistant Chief Everett on January 16, 2025 claimed the Jan 1 Lachman fire was "dead out" by Jan 3 and "If it is determined that was the cause" of the Palisades Fire, "it would be a phenomenon."
— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) October 8, 2025
"On the fire on New Year's Eve. I was not there. I was out of town. However,… pic.twitter.com/BGfbRcTqx8
Everett said:
"On the fire on New Year's Eve. I was not there. I was out of town. However, when that fire broke out I got – myself and my deputy chief were up on the phone talking to each other and talking to the Incident Commander.
"I can tell you those people on that fire ground were highly qualified and well-trusted. They also did what they called a cold trailing operation well into the next day. We kept a patrol well over 36 hours. We kept the hose line on the hill, we call it we kept it plumbed just to go back and continue to patrol. That fire was dead out.
"If it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon."
LAFD's After Action Report, released Wednesday evening (which will be analyzed in an upcoming article), states that the last company cleared even earlier:
By approximately 0338 hours, forward progress was stopped, with the hose lines effectively containing the fire by approximately 0451 hours. Resources remained on patrol status for an additional 12 hours until the last company cleared at 1641 hours on January 1, 2025.
This Instagram reel from CBS News contains photos from a hiker taken mid-morning on January 1, hours after LAFD announced that the fire had been contained, showing the ground still smoldering - and shows smoke arising from that area of the Temescal Ridge Trail on satellite imagery taken the morning of January 7, just before the fire was called in by residents.
It's a common practice for wildland firefighters to patrol a recent burn area for days or weeks to look for signs of reignition, ATF Special Agent in Charge Kenny Cooper said during a Wednesday press conference, referencing his own time as a firefighter:
We would go suppress [the fire], and then every day, for weeks on end, we would patrol those areas to make sure they didn’t reignite. If we saw evidence of smoke or heat, then we would provide resources to that. So that, I know that’s a common practice, and it’s just, it’s a very difficult fire burning underground.
That was not done in this instance, according to a verified complaint filed by fire victims, and despite the fact that red flag warnings and a Fire Weather Watch were issued starting January 3, no LAFD or CalFire assets were pre-deployed to Pacific Palisades on January 7. Instead, LAFD pre-deployed nine engines to the San Fernando Valley and the Hollywood Hills, neither of which had recent fires at risk of rekindling.
The closest crews to the Lachman Fire were at Fire Station 23 and Fire Station 69, three to four miles downhill from where the fire reignited. According to incident logs, it took 19 minutes for the first engine to reach the scene; that crew requested 10 more engines immediately.
One minute after that request, LAFD Captain Brandon Ruedy informed dispatch that the blaze "ha[d] the potential for 200-plus acres in the next 20 minutes."
Regardless of exactly how the fire started, and the failures of the LAFD in ensuring the fire was extinguished, nearly 50 years of vegetation growth that built up in Topanga State Park without any brush clearance, let alone a controlled burn, contributed greatly to the blaze's intensity, rapid spread, and lethality - and that's on Newsom and the environmentalist wackos he catered to. Then, of course, there are the failures of LADWP to ensure that there was water to fight the blaze and to de-energize power lines once the blaze started, and numerous other failures on the part of LAFD and LADWP.
And while Palisades Fire victims are grateful to finally know the origin and cause of the blaze, they are angry and say they still have many questions. Jon Brown, who attended Wednesday's press conference, told the LA Times:
“I think this is only going to infuriate people, to be honest. They think that they have done something by finding the guy who did it, but they’re really going to fan the flames on what everybody is really pissed about. Why wasn’t the fire put out on the 1st?”
Darrin Hurwitz, who hiked the Temescal Ridge Trail on the morning of January 7 and smelled smoke around 8:15 a.m. that day, said he didn't see any fire engines pre-positioned that day, no firefighters out near the scene of the Lachman Fire, and didn't observe any air assets. His home and his children's school, Marquez Elementary, burned. Further, he said that it wouldn't have been difficult to have at least a few resources on the ground near that burn scar:
“It’s not remote. Where the fire started, you can access from the Highlands. It’s a very short walk. ... It would not have been difficult to pre-deploy firefighting resources on the ground there.
“I think it’s unsettling and unfortunate that anyone would intentionally start a fire. Obviously, I’m not discounting the criminal activity that may have occurred here. But I think the bigger concerns are going to be around fire prevention and firefighting.
“Any information that helps determine the cause of the fire and helps prevent future fires is obviously important to have, but in this case, the determination that the fire was a rekindling of a small fire that was purportedly extinguished six days before raises far more question than answers. What protocols were in place for ensuring the Lachman fire was fully extinguished? Were they followed? Were resources adequately deployed to the area on Jan. 7 given the extreme wind warnings?”
Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV show star who lost both his family home (with wife Heidi Montag) and childhood home in the Palisades, and who has become a leading advocate for the fire victims, sent Gavin Newsom a message:
"Gavin Newsom desperately wants you to move on from the Palisades Fire. He’s so desperate, he doesn’t realize that today’s arson arrest proved the foundational point of our lawsuit against Newsom and the State of California. Today’s arrest proves that Newsom’s Topanga State Park allowed a fire to smolder for a week without doing anything to mitigate it. This is exactly what we alleged in our lawsuit, and he’s so dumb he doesn’t realize that this helps us sue him. I think the hair gel is getting to his brain cells.
"He says this brings closure to the victims because he wants you to stop talking about the fire that’s on his hands. This ain’t closure, pal. It’s just the beginning. Thank you to the DOJ and the ATF for finally releasing the evidence that proves that our lawsuit against Gavin Newsom is on point."
Oh and isn’t it cute that NEWSOM did his press conference from East LA? Why is he talking about the Palisades from East LA? It’s because he’s too much of a coward to show up. pic.twitter.com/aAH7mFrtfO
— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) October 8, 2025
This story is definitely to be continued.
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