The man accused of sparking the Palisades Fire that leveled parts of Los Angeles last winter — killing 12 people and destroying more than 6,000 homes — generated images of burning cities on ChatGPT months before the blaze and filled his social-media feed with anti-Trump rants and climate-change alarmism, according to court filings and media reports.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, was arrested in Florida this week after federal investigators tied him to the hillside where the first flames ignited on January 1, 2025. Prosecutors allege he lit a small brushfire near the Skull Rock Trailhead in Pacific Palisades after completing an Uber shift, then filmed firefighters battling the flames before returning to Florida.
Six days later, strong winds reignited smoldering embers beneath the vegetation — turning what had been dubbed the “Lachman Fire” into a catastrophic inferno that ultimately consumed 23,000 acres, killed 12 people, and caused roughly $150 billion in damage.
Anti-Trump Rants, Climate Extremism, and Violent Imagery
In an exclusive report, the New York Post revealed that Rinderknecht’s social-media accounts were filled with environmental alarmism and far-left political content.
His Facebook feed featured posts mocking President Donald Trump and his supporters, links to “eco-apocalypse” articles, and even a Harris-Biden fundraiser link.
Among the articles he shared:
- “Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration” (ProPublica)
- “Senator Kamala Harris Says Meat Is Destroying the Planet”
- “Antarctica’s Ice Shelves Have Lost Millions of Metric Tons of Ice” (Scientific American)
- “A Shift to Plant-Based Diets Would Create 19 Million Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean” (Forbes)
Rinderknecht also circulated photos of Trump supporters crying after the 2020 election and created AI-generated pictures depicting cities burning and masses of people fleeing destruction, prosecutors said.
Digital Evidence From ChatGPT Prompts
According to the Justice Department and reporting by the BBC, agents discovered on Rinderknecht’s phone a ChatGPT-generated image of a burning city and records of several disturbing prompts.
In July 2024, five months before the blaze, he asked ChatGPT to produce a “dystopian painting” showing the rich “watching the world burn” as the poor fled in panic. A month later, he typed another message:
“I literally burnt the Bible that I had. It felt amazing. I felt so liberated.”
Investigators say he also asked the chatbot, “Are you at fault if a fire is lit because of your cigarettes?” — a question prosecutors now describe as part of an effort to fabricate an innocent narrative after the fact.
Authorities recovered additional videos he shot of firefighters trying to suppress the flames, as well as multiple failed 911 calls placed just after midnight on New Year’s Day. Officials said he appeared “agitated and angry” to Uber passengers earlier that evening.
LAFD Report Details ‘Perfect Storm’ of Failures
Following Rinderknecht’s arrest, the Los Angeles Fire Department released its long-awaited After-Action Review Report detailing challenges during the fire’s first 36 hours. Firefighters cited “dry vegetation, unrelenting wind, limited aerial support, and a loss of water pressure” as major obstacles that allowed the fire to spread rapidly across the Pacific Palisades, Topanga, and Malibu.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom called the arrest “an important step toward bringing closure to the thousands of Californians whose lives were upended,” adding that the state is cooperating with federal investigators.
Next Steps
Rinderknecht has been charged with destruction of property by means of fire, and prosecutors say additional charges — including murder — could follow. He appeared in federal court in Florida this week and remains held without bail pending extradition to Los Angeles.