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A 29-year-old man, Jonathan Rinderknecht, accused of sparking one of California’s deadliest wildfires, has pleaded not guilty to multiple arson-related charges during a court appearance on Thursday.
Rinderknecht is accused of deliberately setting a fire in the hills overlooking Pacific Palisades, an affluent neighbourhood of Los Angeles, in the early hours of New Year’s Day.
Prosecutors allege that while firefighters managed to initially extinguish the blaze, powerful winds a week later reignited it, transforming the flames into a massive inferno that devastated some of the most expensive homes in the United States.
Almost simultaneously, a separate fire — believed to have been triggered by an electrical fault — broke out near Altadena.
The two fires raged for weeks, claiming 31 lives, leaving thousands homeless, and destroying vast swathes of land.
Officials say the twin disasters rank among the deadliest and costliest in California’s history, with total damage estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Appearing before US Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver, Rinderknecht, dressed in white jail clothing and shackled at the waist, confirmed he understood the charges against him, which include destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and setting timber ablaze. He pleaded not guilty to all counts.
Prosecutors said Rinderknecht could face up to 45 years in prison if convicted on all charges. He remains in federal custody and is scheduled to return to court on November 12, with a tentative trial date set for December 16.
The January fires were particularly difficult to contain due to hurricane-force winds reaching up to 100 miles (160 kilometres) per hour, which grounded firefighting aircraft and hampered ground crews.
Authorities also struggled with limited urban water resources that were never designed to tackle fires of such unprecedented magnitude.
Rinderknecht’s arrest in Florida earlier this month followed an extensive investigation into the origins of the Pacific Palisades blaze.
Meanwhile, Southern California Edison, the utility company linked to the separate Eaton Fire near Altadena, announced in July that it would begin compensating victims.
While the official cause of that fire has not yet been confirmed, multiple witnesses and videos suggest that sparks from power lines may have triggered the fast-spreading flames.
