Suspect Arrested for Causing Palisades Fire in California

Jonathan Rinderknect, aka Jon Rinder or Jonathan Rinder, 29, was arrested on Tuesday for causing the fire that became the Palisades Fire from January 2025. Though he currently was living in Florida, he was an UBER driver in California the night the fire started and was familiar with the neighborhood that burned.

According to an affidavit filed with the complaint, law enforcement determined that the Palisades Fire was a “holdover” fire – a continuation of the Lachman Fire that began early in the morning on New Year’s Day 2025. Although firefighters quickly suppressed the Lachman Fire, unbeknownst to anyone the fire continued to smolder and burn underground within the root structure of dense vegetation.

On January 7, heavy winds caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became known as the Palisades Fire, which caused widespread damage in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Law enforcement determined – using witness statements, video surveillance, cellphone data, and analysis of fire dynamics and patterns at the scene, among other things – that Rinderknecht maliciously set the Lachman Fire just after midnight on January 1 on land owned by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA), an organization that received federal funding. A week later, the same fire – then known as the Palisades Fire – burned federal property.

A “holdover fire” is one that submerges underground and resurfaces several days later as wind and heat conditions create the ‘perfect storm.’ At midnight on December 31, 2024, Rinderknecht was working as an Uber driver. He was allegedly “agitated and angry” that night according to two passengers he dropped off. GPS data revealed that he was about 30 feet from the start of the Lachman Fire and allegedly used an open flame to start it.

According to the complaint, Rinderknecht told investigators he grew up in France and often played French rap songs while driving. One track he played — “Un Zder, Un The” by artist Josman — features imagery of fire in its music video.

Prosecutors also claim he used ChatGPT to generate images of a “dystopian painting” showing a city on fire with “hundreds of thousands of people in poverty trying to get past a gigantic gate with a big dollar sign on it.” Independent Journal Review

Twelve people died in the Palisades Fire, with 6,800 homes and businesses lost. The mandatory minimum sentence is 5 years in Federal prison, and the maximum sentence is 20 years.