California Wildfires and Arson Prosecutions

Attorneys for 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht, accused of starting the January 7, 2025 Palisades Fire that killed 12 people in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades and Malibu, are moving to free him from jail and plan a Thursday news conference to highlight what they call exculpatory evidence. Prosecutors allege Rinderknecht set a January 1 fire that continued smoldering underground and later reignited into one of California’s most destructive wildfires, but the defense argues he is a scapegoat for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish that earlier blaze. They are pointing to a newly released deposition from a firefighter, given in a civil suit by fire victims, who testified he saw smoldering ground and hot spots on January 2 and says he alerted supervisors — testimony they say they did not have when Rinderknecht was indicted in October. A battalion chief, in contrast, testified that he walked the burn perimeter four times that day and ensured all hot spots were out, prompting new LAFD Chief Jaime Moore to order an independent review of how the Jan. 1 fire was handled. Defense lawyer Steve Haney says the conflicting accounts undermine “the very foundation of the charges,” contends Rinderknecht should never have been indicted, and is demanding his immediate release after roughly 150 days in custody, sharpening a broader debate over accountability for deadly wildfires in a region already on edge about fire risk and government competence.