Los Angeles City Councilmember Traci Park joined Palisades community leaders and residents on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 8, after the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced that 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht was arrested on suspicion of sparking the Palisades fire, which took the lives of 12 people and destroyed more than 6,800 structures.
Residents said news of the arrest confirmed some of their suspicions that the Palisades fire was a continuation — a so-called “holdover” blaze — of the Lachman fire on Jan 1., which is what Rinderknecht was accused of starting.
Rinderknecht was charged on Wednesday, but determining any guilt to the government’s allegations will still be a long road.
Experts say federal prosecutors will need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Palisades fire actually grew from the blaze that broke out six days earlier.
Still, for some, word of the arrest brought a sense of closure, and for others a mix of anger and more questions about the catastrophe and the city and county’s response to it.
“We can call today’s development progress, we can say there will be accountability, but for them and for me, there’s no closure,” said Park, who represents Council District 11, which includes the Pacific Palisades. “Today’s report is just one small step in the reckoning and the accountability that these residents deserve.”
Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a press conference Wednesday morning that the fire started on Jan. 1, and it “continued to smolder and burn underground within the root structure of the dense vegetation.”
Park assured residents that there will be more reports and investigations by the L.A. Fire Department, L.A. County and the state, which will be released with more information.
Park said she has requested that the L.A. City Council fund and deliver its own, independent assessment of the city’s efforts to “ensure that every question is answered.”
“The charges against the perpetrator demonstrate that it was a calculated, malicious act that unleashed death and destruction of innocent people,” Park said. “We’re here to name it for what it is: arson, intentional, reckless, heinous. And that it was done on purpose only makes it hurt more.”
But questions also turned toward the efficiency of the L.A. Fire Department’s response.
Park said she has “many questions” about the sufficiency of the suppression of the fire on Jan. 7, which she believes “raises many other questions about the deployment and other operational decisions that were made on that day and in the aftermath.”
“[News of the arrest] gives closure to that one issue. There’s still questions that those people want to have answered about the systematic problems that we’ve had,” said Jim Cragg, representing the Palisades’ American Legion Post 283 and the Palisades Long Term Recovery Group.
That the Palisades fire was allegedly a continuation of the Lachman fire was certainly a suspicion for Allison Polhill, a Palisades resident and senior advisor for LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin.
On Jan. 7, she helped evacuate children as the Palisades fire spread. She took steps with the district to keep Topanga Elementary students from going to school that day due to the high winds.
She said that on Jan 1., from where she lived on the Pacific Palisades’ Alphabet Streets, she could see the fire. Her son told everyone at their New Year’s Eve party that they needed to leave. Polhill even packed a bag that night. She reported calling her friends who live on Lachman Lane at 2 a.m. to wake them up to tell them that there was a fire.
“To be honest with you, when this report came out, many of us had a pit in our stomach. It re-opens a wound after nine months,” Polhill said. She said that and other Palisades residents knew that the fire “did, in fact, start on Jan. 1 at around 2 a.m,” and was then “rekindled” on Jan. 7.
She said she and residents on her block “felt rage” after learning the news of the arrest on Monday.
“We were all like, nine months later, come on, everybody knows. It was the exact same,” said Polhill. “This guy set a fire on the [Jan. 1… Everybody knew-there were predictions of dangerous high winds,” suggesting she knew the Palisades fire was a continuation of the Lachlan fire.
Polhill said a friend told her, ‘if [the Lachlan fire] had happened on a windy day, it would be a whole different deal,” meaning that, if there were winds like the ones on Jan. 7, it would’ve been much more disastrous.
Park assured residents that there will be more reports and investigations by L.A. Fire Department, LA County and the state that will be released with more information. Park said she has requested and that LA City Council has funded and will deliver their own, independent assessment of the city’s efforts to “ensure that every question is answered.”
Julianna Lozada is a Southern California-based freelance writer.