LOS ANGELES -- Federal authorities in Los Angeles arrested an Uber driver who appeared to be obsessed with fire in connection with the wildfire that devastated the wealthy coastal enclave of Pacific Palisades, California, in January.

Officials said the driver, Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, of Melbourne, Florida, had intentionally set a fire on New Year's Day on a hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. That small blaze rekindled disastrously a week later, killing 12 people and destroying 6,837 structures, most of them homes in Pacific Palisades.

In a federal complaint, prosecutors alleged that Rinderknecht, a former resident of the Palisades, dropped off a passenger on New Year's Eve and drove toward a popular trailhead known as Skull Rock.

He then parked, tried to call a former friend

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