WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A man was arrested in Florida on charges of intentionally igniting what would become California‘s devastating Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and wiped out a wealthy enclave of Los Angeles at the start of the year, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday.
According to prosecutors, Jonathan Rinderknecht started a fire near a hiking trail in the mountains near Pacific Palisades a few minutes after midnight on January 1 after he completed a shift driving an Uber car.
Los Angeles firefighters had thought they had quickly extinguished that blaze, known as the Lachman Fire. But it erupted anew on January 7 after smoldering underground for a week, becoming the Palisades Fire, according to federal investigators.
Rinderknecht, 29, repeatedly called 911 on January 1 before successfully connecting to report the blaze, according to a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. He also recorded videos on his phone of firefighters attempting to extinguish the blaze.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated the cause of the fire with the Los Angeles fire and police departments.
While on the 911 call, according to the criminal complaint, Rinderknecht typed a question into ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence app on his phone: “Are you at fault if a fire is lift (sic) because of your cigarettes.” ChatGPT’s response was “Yes,” the complaint said.
Rinderknecht later spoke with investigators for several hours, and made conflicting statements about whether he smoked cigarettes near the trail that night, the complaint said.
The fire scorched more than 23,000 acres (9,308 hectares), decimating Pacific Palisades, a mostly wealthy residential neighborhood overlooking the ocean.
It was among the most destructive fires in the city’s history, destroying some 6,000 structures around Los Angeles, causing about $150 billion in damages, and was simultaneous with another huge destructive fire in nearby Altadena known as the Eaton Fire.
It ravaged large parts of Pacific Palisades, Topanga and Malibu before firefighters were finally able to contain the blaze about 24 days later
ATF investigators concluded that the Palisades Fire, which ignited suddenly, was probably started by someone using a lighter to burn a combustible material “such as vegetation or paper,” the complaint said. Cellphone data shows that no one besides Rinderknecht was in the area at that time, and he himself said he saw no one else near the trail.
Rinderknecht, who told investigators he once lived in Pacific Palisades, was arrested in Florida. Authorities will transfer him back to the Central District of California to face prosecution. He is facing a federal charge of arson because the fire burned federal land, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
A public defender representing him did not respond to a request for comment.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other local officials faced fierce criticism over the preparedness and response to the fire, with Bass firing Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley in February.
“Each day that families are displaced is a day too long and as we are working tirelessly to bring Angelenos home, we are also working towards closure and towards justice – and today is a step forward in that process,” Bass said in a statement on Wednesday.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said the arrest was an important step towards determining how the fire started “and bringing closure to the thousands of survivors whose lives were upended.”
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Scott Malone, Richard Chang, Aurora Ellis and Daniel Wallis)
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