Federal prosecutors say the man accused of starting the fire that devastated Pacific Palisades in January left behind a trail of digital and behavioral evidence — from an artificial intelligence-generated photo of a burning city to repeated listening to a French rap song to his mood as an Uber driver in the hours before the initial fire started.
Visualize destruction using ChatGPT
Months before the fire, investigators alleged that 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht used ChatGPT to create an image that prosecutors described as “a dystopian painting showing a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it.”
Officials released the information at a news conference Wednesday announcing Rinderknecht’s arrest, describing it as part of the digital evidence that helped link the Florida resident — who once lived in the Palisades area — to the Luckman Fire, the smaller blaze that burned underground for a week before erupting on Jan. 7 into the Palisades Fire.
“You can see some of his thought process in the months leading up to this, as he was generating some really disturbing images on ChatGPT, which appeared to show a miserable city being burned down,” Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essay said on Wednesday.
Authorities did not say whether the image was shared publicly, or reveal the ChatGPT claims that created it. Al-Asili said that more evidence will be presented at trial.
The New Year’s ride-sharing route that ended at the ignition point
According to the criminal complaint, Rinderknecht was working an Uber shift on New Year’s Eve and dropped off a passenger in a residential area of Pacific Palisades just before midnight.
Two of Rinderknecht’s other passengers told investigators that he appeared “agitated and angry” that night, investigators allege. In a statement to KTLA, an Uber representative confirmed that Rinderknecht was a driver but was not on the Uber app at the time of the Lachman fire.
“We are still working closely with the ATF to help determine the driver’s whereabouts on and around January 1 and have provided the ATF with critical GPS data and other relevant information,” Uber said. “Once we learned of the suspected driver’s involvement, we removed his access to the Uber platform and continued to work with the ATF on this nine-month investigation.”
After Rinderknecht’s last Uber ride, officials said he parked his car near the Skull Rock Trailhead — not far from the Lachman Trail — and tried to call an ex-boyfriend before going up the hill, but failed.
“He then used his iPhone to take videos in a nearby hilltop area and listened to a rap song — which he had listened to repeatedly in the previous days — whose music video involved setting things on fire,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
A song about “despair and bitterness”
The Department of Justice’s official criminal complaint states that at 11:28 p.m., Rinderknecht used his iPhone to access YouTube to listen to the song titled “Un roar, un thi.” By French artist Guzman.
“I reviewed the English translation of the French lyrics, and the theme of the song is despair and bitterness,” the complaint said. The document adds that during his interview on January 24, Rinderknecht admitted that he was fluent in French and that he had grown up in France.
Investigators used Google records to find that in the past four days, Rinderknecht allegedly listened to the same song nine times and watched the music video at least three times. In the music video, artist Guzman is seen lighting small fires, which go along with the lyrics about pain, smoking marijuana, not sleeping, and being bitter toward the world.
In one instance, Guzman was seen next to a burning trash can while singing the following lyrics, which were translated into English via: Musixmatch:
Yes, imagine how much I have in my head, yes
I’m taking off, I’m moving up
Everything we burn is calculated in grams, yes.
In another example, scenes in which Guzmán and others burn joints, money, and trash play over the following words:
I’m so sorry for my parents
I have a lot of bitterness in my head, thinking about the mistakes we made
But I won’t make them twice, neither choice nor right
The complaint alleges that Rinderknecht listened to the song again at 11:54 p.m., minutes before the fire broke out.
From burning embers to disaster
At 12:12 a.m. on January 1, sensors detected a small fire burning in the same area. Prosecutors allege Rinderknecht tried several times to call 911 but was unable to get through due to poor reception. When he finally reached dispatchers, he claimed he was reporting the fire from down the road — but geolocation data later placed him about 30 feet above the fire’s starting point, according to prosecutors.
After hanging up on the call, he drove away from the area, passing fire trucks heading toward the scene, officials said. Moments later, he turned and followed them, filming firefighters battling the flames.
Fire crews initially suppressed the Lackman Fire, but the flames burned deep within the drying plants’ root systems — a “residual fire” that flared up again on Jan. 7 amid strong Santa Ana winds.
This underground eruption grew into the Palisades Fire, which federal investigators described as one of the costliest and most destructive urban wildfires in U.S. history, killing 12 people and destroying 6,837 structures across Palisades and Malibu.
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Firefighters watch water fall on the Palisades Fire in Mandeville Canyon on Saturday, January 11, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jay Si Hong) -
FILE – Destruction from the Palisades Fire is seen in an aerial view in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) -
FILE – Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire as it burns several buildings in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File) -
Charred cars sit along the Pacific Coast Highway, Tuesday, January 14, 2025, in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) -
FILE – Firefighters work from the deck as the Palisades Fire burns a beachfront property Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Malibu, Calif. (AP Photo/Etienne Laurent, File) -
The remains of beachfront homes that burned along the Pacific Coast Highway during the Palisades Fire in Malibu, California, on Wednesday, January 15, 2025. (Photo by Jeff Gretchen/Media News Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
The digital trail that followed
When investigators interviewed Rinderknecht on Jan. 24, they said he lied about his location that night, claiming he was far from the ignition site. The digital data told another story — one that prosecutors say linked his cell records, ride-sharing methods, and iPhone footage directly to the point of origin.
He then moved to Melbourne, Florida, where he was arrested this week on a federal charge of destruction of property using fire.
He faces a mandatory prison sentence of at least five years and up to 20 years if convicted.
“This arrest cannot erase the pain or grief,” ATF Special Agent in Charge Kenny Cooper said Wednesday. “But it is evidence that justice will not be forgotten, and accountability will be pursued, no matter how complex the investigation.”