Palisades Fire Arrest Isnt Closure; Its Just the

After Wednesday’s arrest of Jonathan Rinderknecht in connection with the lethal Palisades Fire, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that there was finally “closure” for Pacific Palisades residents, but nothing might be additional from the fact. The arrest offered solutions about the fire’s origin, but created a lot more questions.

A felony grievance charging Rinderknecht with deliberately setting the blaze states that it began just after midnight on January 1, 2025, and was contained by the Los Angeles Fire Department within a day or two, relying upon which LAFD official was talking. A firebrand turned seated in dense vegetation and smoldered and burned in the roots underground for almost a week until January 7, when the predicted windstorm introduced embers to the floor. 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 discovered in his glove compartment to gentle the blaze, and it was not triggered by youngsters setting off fireworks for the new 12 months, as had been rumored.

Ed Norskog, former head of the LA County Sheriff’s Department arson unit, told the Los Angeles Times:

“This affidavit places the accountability on the fire division. There wants to be a commission analyzing 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 lifeless out” before January 7.

LAFD Assistant Chief Everett on January 16, 2025 claimed the Jan 1 Lachman fire was “lifeless out” by Jan 3 and “If it’s decided that was the trigger” of the Palisades Fire, “it could be a phenomenon.”

“On the fire on New Year’s Eve. I used to be not there. I used to be out of city. However,… pic.twitter.com/BGfbRcTqx8

— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) October 8, 2025

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 let you know those people on that fire ground have been extremely certified and well-trusted. They also did what they called a cold trailing operation effectively into the next day. We stored a patrol effectively over 36 hours. We stored the hose line on the hill, we call it we stored it plumbed just to go back and continue to patrol. That fire was lifeless out.

“If it is determined that was the cause, it would be a phenomenon.”

LAFD’s After Action Report, launched Wednesday night (which might be analyzed in an upcoming article), states that the last company cleared even earlier:

By roughly 0338 hours, ahead progress was stopped, with the hose strains successfully containing the fire by roughly 0451 hours. Resources remained on patrol standing for an extra 12 hours until the last company cleared at 1641 hours on January 1, 2025.

This Instagram reel from CBS News comprises photographs from a hiker taken mid-morning on January 1, hours after LAFD announced that the fire had been contained, displaying the ground still smoldering – and exhibits smoke arising from that space of the Temescal Ridge Trail on satellite tv for pc imagery taken the morning of January 7, just before the fire was called in by residents.

It’s a common follow for wildland firefighters to patrol a latest burn space for days or weeks to look for indicators of reignition, ATF Special Agent in Charge Kenny Cooper said during a Wednesday press convention, referencing his own time as a firefighter:

We would go suppress [the fire], and then every day, for weeks on end, we’d patrol those areas to make sure they didn’t reignite. If we noticed evidence of smoke or heat, then we would supply assets to that. So that, I do know that’s a common follow, and it’s just, it’s a very tough fire burning underground.

That was not carried out in this occasion, according to a verified grievance filed by fire victims, and despite the fact that purple flag warnings and a Fire Weather Watch have been issued beginning January 3, no LAFD or CalFire property have been pre-deployed to Pacific Palisades on January 7. Instead, LAFD pre-deployed 9 engines to the San Fernando Valley and the Hollywood Hills, neither of which had latest fires at risk of rekindling.

The closest crews to the Lachman Fire have been at Fire Station 23 and Fire Station 69, three to 4 miles downhill from where the fire reignited. According to incident logs, it took 19 minutes for the first engine to attain 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 precisely how the fire began, and the failures of the LAFD in guaranteeing the fire was extinguished, almost 50 years of vegetation growth that constructed up in Topanga State Park without any brush clearance, let alone a managed burn, contributed drastically to the blaze’s depth, fast unfold, and lethality – and that’s on Newsom and the environmentalist wackos he catered to. Then, of course, there are the failures of LADWP to guarantee that there was water to combat the blaze and to de-energize energy strains once the blaze began, and quite a few other failures on the half of LAFD and LADWP.

And while Palisades Fire victims are grateful to finally know the origin and trigger of the blaze, they’re offended and say they still have many questions. Jon Brown, who attended Wednesday’s press convention, 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 did not see any fire engines pre-positioned that day, no firefighters out close to the scene of the Lachman Fire, and did not observe any air property. His home and his youngsters’s college, Marquez Elementary, burned. Further, he said that it would not have been tough to have at least a few assets on the ground close to 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 actuality TV show star who misplaced both his household home (with spouse Heidi Montag) and childhood home in the Palisades, and who has turn into a main advocate for the fire victims, despatched 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 needs you to stop speaking about the fire that’s on his arms. This ain’t closure, pal. It’s just the starting. Thank you to the DOJ and the ATF for finally releasing the evidence that proves that our lawsuit against Gavin Newsom is on level.”

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 unquestionably to be continued.

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