At around midnight on Jan. 1, 2025, Jonathan Rinderknecht started the Lachman Fire in the hills of the Pacific Palisades, according to a federal indictment released Wednesday .

The fire was kept small that night — contained to just 8 acres by helicopters and hand crews from the L.A. city and county fire departments. Six days later, as strong and dry winds whipped across the Santa Monica Mountains, its remnants erupted from within the ground, quickly spreading through nearby communities and taking on the name the Palisades Fire.

On Wednesday, officials revealed that Palisades, one of California’s most devastating blazes, was a “holdover fire.”

“Unbeknownst to anyone, the fire continued to smolder and burn underground, within the root structure of dense vegetation,” reads the crim

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