The man arrested on suspicion of starting the blaze that resulted in Palisades Fire is facing two new felony charges. Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, has been in federal custody since October 8, charged with one count of destruction of property by means of fire. He has now been indicted on one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and one count of timber set afire.
The evidence connecting Rinderknecht to the January 1 Lachman Fire that ignited near the Skull Rock Trailhead in Topanga State Park a week before the January 7 Palisades Fire erupted in the same location is extensive and damning. The January 1 fire was quickly contained by Los Angeles County Fire crews, but the evidence suggests it was not fully extinguished. Powerful winds on the morning of January 7 fanned the still-smoldering fire back to life, igniting one of the most catastrophic disasters in Los Angeles History.
Twelve people died in the Palisades Fire. If Rinderknecht is found guilty of arson, he could also be charged with multiple counts of homicide. He has pleaded not guilty.
Whether there is enough to conclusively tie the act of setting the January 1 fire with the ignition of the January 7 Palisades Fire remains to be seen, but Rinderknecht is one of very few people to ever face arson charges for a major wildfire event in the Santa Monica Mountains. Arson has caused many of the most destructive wildfires in Southern California, including several in our local mountains, but the arsonists have almost always remained elusive.
That was the case in 1993, when the Old Topanga Fire, which started on November 2, burned more than 18,000 acres, destroyed 323 homes, damaged 112, and caused more than 150 injuries and the tragic death of three people.
Several eyewitness accounts placed one, or possibly two, suspicious strangers at the place where the fire started in Old Topanga Canyon. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Sargent Ron Abbot told the media that the evidence strongly suggested that “an arsonist’s match or lighter started the fire,” but the people responsible were never apprehended.
The Old Topanga Fire was devastating for Topanga and Malibu residents, but it was only one of a series of concurrent wildfires. From late October to early November, 26 wildfires burned more than 175,000 acres throughout Southern California, destroying more than 700 homes. Arson was blamed for 19 of those fires.
Resources were stretched to the limit as fire crews grappled with multiple major wildfires.
The Green Meadow Fire, which started on October 26, 1993, and burned a large swath of the western Santa Monica Mountains, was caused by arson. This fire started near the Los Robles Golf Course in Thousand Oaks, south of Highway 101 on October 26, 1993, and burned all the way to the ocean north of Malibu. It scorched 42,644 acres, destroyed 38 houses, an entire mobile home park with 21 mobile homes, and 80 other structures, and caused 24 injuries.
Arson was also named as the cause of the October 27, 1993 Laguna Fire in Orange County. This fire burned more than 16,000 acres, destroyed hundreds of homes in Laguna Canyon—an area far from the Santa Monica Mountains but similar to Topanga and Malibu in terrain. Investigators determined that the fire was set deliberately, but no one was ever apprehended, and the case remains open.
No physical evidence of how the Topanga, Laguna and Green Meadow fires were ignited was reported, but the Los Angeles Times reported that “seven of the major fires, and at least two of the smaller ones, appear to have been deliberately set using road flares, newspapers and gasoline and other incendiary devices.” That suggests some of the fires may have been set by the same arsonist(s).
In her 1979 collection of essays, The White Album, the late Joan Didion gave a compelling and grisly account of the October 23, 1978 Kanan Fire, which burned 25,000 acres, including her former neighborhood on Broad Beach in Malibu.
“Refugees huddled on Zuma Beach,” she wrote. “Horses caught fire and were shot on the beach, birds exploded in the air. Houses did not explode but imploded, as in a nuclear strike. By the time this fire storm had passed 197 houses had vanished into ash, many of them houses which belonged or had belonged to people we knew.”
Described in the media as the “Agoura Malibu Firestorm,” this fire destroyed 200 homes, burned 38,000 acres of land, and caused three fatalities.
A fifteen-year-old boy was arrested for igniting the Kanan Fire. It was revealed that he used a cigarette wrapped in a matchbook, tossed from the window of a moving car. Arson investigators revealed that they found a second bundle of cigarettes and matches only a hundred yards from the place the fire started, “apparently thrown there by the same firebug about two weeks earlier, matches, undersheriff Sherman Block told the media.
The suspect was tried as a minor and sentenced to juvenile detention. He would have turned 21 in 1984.
Other major local fires that were caused by arson include the October 9, 1982 Dayton Fire, which burned 43,096 acres from Calabasas to the sea at Paradise Cove in Malibu; the September 25, 1970 Wright Fire, which burned 28,202-acres; and the 1930 and 1972 Portero fires—20,391 acres and 12,297 acres, respectively.
The1970 Wright Fire was set while fire fighters were already struggling to contain the massive, 107,103-acre Clampitt Fire, caused by downed power lines. The fire swiftly spread to the west, raging through the mountains that ring the San Fernando Valley. The two fires merged, burning “from Saugus to the sea.” Once again, no suspect was ever apprehended.
Rindernecht was apprehended not because of physical evidence left of the ground at the ignition site, but because he left an extensive digital trail. Federal investigators will be using witness statements and video surveillance, but they also have amassed extensive corroborating evidence drawn from the suspect’s cellphone data, which places him at the location at the time the fire started; Internet activity; and even his interactions with Chat GPT—evidence suggests “malicious intent,” according to the justice department’s press release.
If he is convicted, Rinderknecht could potentially face a maximum sentence of 45 years in federal prison, and that doesn’t include the potential for additional homicide charges.
For those who lived through the Old Topanga Fire, not knowing how it started and, even worse, not knowing if the person or people who started it would strike again, was a major source of anxiety. At least this time, we may have an answer.
For the people left reeling from a disaster that destroyed homes, took lives, and left many grappling with PTSD and other serious health issues, this time, unlike all of those other times, there may be some kind of closure. An answer to how, if not why, and the knowledge that, if this man was guilty of starting the fire, he will at least be unlikely to have the opportunity to start another. It isn’t much, but it’s something.
