Democrats and media outlets were quick to blame climate change and oil companies for the devastating Palisades Fire that ravaged Los Angeles earlier this year. But that narrative crumbled on Wednesday when federal law enforcement officials charged a man for deliberately starting the fire.
Federal prosecutors in California charged Jonathan Rinderknecht with one count of destruction of property by means of fire, a charge that carries a maximum time of 20 years in federal prison. “While we cannot bring back what victims lost, we hope this criminal case brings some measure of justice to those affected by this horrific tragedy,” said acting U.S. attorney Bill Essayli.
The charge—which Essayli said was informed by witness statements, video surveillance, cell phone data, and an analysis of fire dynamics conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives—cuts against the narrative prominent Democratic lawmakers and media outlets pushed following the tragic event.
“If you don’t believe in science, believe your own damn eyes,” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) wrote in a post with photographs of the Los Angeles fire. The post came in response to news that President Donald Trump would withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accords in January.
After prosecutors announced the charge against Rinderknecht on Wednesday, Newsom wrote it “marks an important step toward uncovering how the horrific Palisades Fire began.”
During his farewell address from the Oval Office, then-president Joe Biden blamed the fire on the “existential threat of climate change.”
“The scale of damage and loss is unimaginable,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) wrote on X amid the fire. “Climate change is real, not ‘a hoax.’ Donald Trump must treat this like the existential crisis it is.”
Rep. Jared Huffman (D., Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, added it is time to “demand real action.” “The GOP majority can no longer ignore the climate crisis or the solutions that will actually make meaningful change.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, (D., Texas) chimed in as well: “I’m so heartbroken at the devastation that’s continuously inflicted upon our country & the world & elected ‘leaders’ are ignorant, impotent, or just incompetent to doing the smart thing, which is to acknowledge that climate change is real & start to solve it.”
California state senator Scott Wiener (D.), meanwhile, introduced legislation that would have allowed victims of the fire to sue oil companies for related damages. Such a bill would have had a destructive impact on the oil industry—the fire caused more than $95 billion in property and capital losses, according to a UCLA report published in February.
And, like Democrats, the New York Times, Associated Press, NPR, USA Today, NBC News, CNN, the Guardian, and the Los Angeles Times all pegged climate change for the fire.
Those stories had headlines like the Guardian‘s “The Los Angeles wildfires are climate disasters compounded,” the Los Angeles Times‘s “How climate change worsened the most destructive wildfires in L.A. history,” and NBC News’s “How weather driven by climate change helped fuel the Southern California fires.”
David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic strategist and CNN commentator, shared an Associated Press story titled “It’s not really the typical time for nasty California fires. What changed that?” He urged his followers to read it: “Consider the fact that Trump has called climate change a ‘hoax,’ and plans to scrap efforts to slow it’s progress,” he wrote.
The New York Times published personal vignettes written by its California-based reporters about how the fires have personally impacted them. Nicole Sperling, who covers Hollywood for the paper, went as far as to say the fire had caused her to question major life decisions.
“In the wake of these fires, I’ve been thinking about my children and the world they’re inheriting,” wrote Sperling. “The disastrous effects of climate change have made these college-age children question what kind of future will be afforded to them. Can they raise families of their own? Will they afford a home? Where is it safe to build? It’s easy to feel helpless.”
“My friend bought a house on one of these hillsides, in Hollywood, in 2022,” New York Times climate reporter Somini Sengupta added in her own vignette. “Last week, she evacuated. She is well aware of how climate change is supersizing fires. She didn’t think it would be so fierce, so fast.”
Los Angeles Times columnist Sammy Roth placed the blame squarely on oil companies: “Los Angeles is burning. Fossil fuel companies laid the kindling. Soon the world will stop caring. If we don’t demand better from the rich & powerful who can do more than anyone to slow the climate crisis, the fires will change nothing.”
Commentators and reporters made similar claims on CNN and MSNBC.
CNN reporter Stephen Collinson, for example, said it was “true” climate change caused less rainfall to occur in the weeks prior during a Jan. 12, 2025, appearance on the network, leading to drier conditions that ignited the fire.
Michael Mann, a left-wing climate scientist and University of Pennsylvania professor, similarly claimed on CNN that “human-caused warming” is to blame for drier conditions that amplified the fire.
“The climate has long been in crisis,” MSNBC host Jen Psaki said. “For California, that means drier conditions and more intense fires, and there’s clear evidence that these destructive events are only becoming more and more likely.”
Overall, the Palisades Fire devastated Los Angeles throughout January 2025, killing 12 people, burning 23,448 acres of land, and destroying 6,873 residential and commercial structures, state data show. Prosecutors said Wednesday that Rinderknecht started the fire from a hilltop near a hiking trail in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day.
“Peer-reviewed studies and direct fire data show that wildfires are burning fewer and fewer square miles of land each year as our climate warms and rainfall modestly increases,” James Taylor, the president of the right-leaning Heartland Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon. “Facts trump alarmism.”
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