Pacific Palisades fire suspect snared by ChatGPT image, say investigators

A 29-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of starting the Pacific Palisades fire in Los Angeles that killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes in January.

Evidence collected from Jonathan Rinderknecht’s digital devices included an image he generated on ChatGPT depicting a city on fire, Justice Department officials said.

The most destructive fire in Los Angeles history broke out Jan. 7 near a hiking trail overlooking the wealthy coastal neighborhood.

The Eaton Fire, which broke out the same day in the Los Angeles area, killed 19 other people and leveled 9,400 structures. The cause of this fire remains unclear. Mr. Rinderknecht is scheduled to appear in court in Orlando, Florida, on Wednesday.

The fire burned more than 23,000 acres (9,308 hectares) and caused an estimated $150 billion (£112 billion) in damage.

Wiping out entire neighborhoods, the fire raged for more than three weeks, also ravaging parts of Topanga and Malibu.

Among the thousands of structures destroyed by the fires were the homes of several celebrities, including Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton and Jeff Bridges.

Mr. Rinderknecht was arrested Tuesday in Florida and charged with destruction of property by fire, Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said at a news conference Wednesday in Los Angeles.

“We hope the arrest will provide a measure of justice for all involved,” Mr Essayli said.

Officials said more charges, including murder, could follow.

Mr. Rinderknecht appeared in court in Flordia on Wednesday. He did not plead.

He is expected back in U.S. District Court in Orlando on Thursday for a bond hearing. He is not expected to enter a formal plea until his arraignment hearing in Los Angeles in the coming weeks.

The first fire Mr. Rinderknecht allegedly started on New Year’s Day was called the Lachman Fire.

Although it was quickly suppressed by firefighters, it continued to smolder underground in the root structure of dense vegetation, investigators said, before igniting again above ground during a windstorm.

The suspect was familiar with the area because he was a former resident of Pacific Palisades, officials said. He lived a block from the Skull Rock trailhead, where he allegedly started the fire.

After the fires, he moved to Florida.

He started the fire with an open flame after taking a ride as an Uber driver on New Year’s Eve, according to the indictment.

Two passengers accompanied Mr. Rinderknecht earlier on New Year’s Eve. One passenger told investigators he remembered the driver appearing agitated and angry.

Authorities said they used data from his phone to pinpoint his location when the fire broke out on Jan. 1, but when they asked him for details, he allegedly lied to investigators, saying he was at the bottom of the trail.

On his phone, they found videos taken by Mr Rinderknecht, showing firefighters trying to put out the flames.

They also discovered, just after midnight on New Year’s Day, that he had called 911 several times but was unable to get through due to spotty cell reception at the trailhead.

On his phone, there was a screen recording of him trying to call emergency services and, at one point, being in contact with a dispatcher.

Mr Rinderknecht also asked ChatGPT: “Are you at fault if a fire breaks out [sic] because of your cigarettes? »

Investigators said the suspect wanted to “preserve evidence of his attempt to help put out the fire.”

“He wanted to create evidence regarding a more innocent explanation for the cause of the fire,” the indictment states.

Investigators noted that Mr. Rinderknecht appeared nervous during his interview on January 24 this year, and that his carotid artery throbbed each time he was asked who started the fire.

In July 2024, five months before he allegedly started the fire, Mr. Rinderknecht asked ChatGPT to create an image of a “dystopian painting” including a burning forest and crowds of people fleeing a fire.

Its prompt to the AI ​​tool included the text: “In the middle [of the painting]hundreds of thousands of poor people try to pass through a gigantic gate with a big dollar sign on it.

“On the other side of the door and all over the wall is a conglomeration of the richest people.

“They relax, watch the world burn and watch people struggle. They laugh and have fun and dance.”

A month before lighting the fire, Mr. Rinderknecht allegedly entered a prompt on ChatGPT that included the text: “I literally burned the Bible that I had. It was incredible. I felt so liberated.”

An external study of the fire commissioned by Los Angeles County supervisors found that “outdated policies” for sending emergency alerts delayed evacuation warnings, among other official failures.

California Governor Gavin Newsom called the arrest an important step toward “ending the thousands of Californians whose lives have been turned upside down.”

He said the state supports the federal investigation into the fire and awaits “an independent after-action report” commissioned by the nation’s leading fire safety researchers.