by Natalia Mittelstadt
Authorities on Wednesday named a suspect in connection to the deadly, devastating Palisades fire in Los Angeles County.
The suspect has been identified as Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, of Florida.
Kenny Cooper, a special FBI agent in Los Angeles, said the blaze, the most destructive in Los Angeles history, was an “incendiary fire” and the “subject arrested started it.”
Authorities said Rinderknecht, an Uber driver, was “charged with the Palisades Fire that started January 1.”
They also said evidence includes content on his phone and of him returning to the fire after he set it to watch firefighters battle the blaze.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said authorities also collected from Rindderknecht’s digital devices an image he generated on ChatGPT depicting a burning city.
The blaze killed 12 people and destroyed over 6,000 homes and buildings in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu. It was a rekindling fire that Rinderknecht allegedly set on New Year’s Eve near a popular hiking area, federal investigators alleged.
In the past, California has charged people for setting fires that burned many acres of land.
Last year, Spencer Grant Anderson was charged with allegedly starting the Thompson Fire in Butte County. This fire burned nearly 4,000 acres and forced the evacuation of almost 20,000 people, CBS News reported. Another person named Justin Wayne Halstenberg was charged in 2024 with starting the Line Fire that burned over 40,000 acres. Halstenberg plead guilty and was senteced to a prison sentence of 16 years to life.
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Natalia Mittelstadt is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
