The federal trial of Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 29-year-old accused of deliberately igniting the Palisades Fire — the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history — opened on Wednesday with sharply contrasting accounts from prosecutors and defence attorneys. Prosecutors portrayed him as a vengeful arsonist; his defence team argued he was an innocent bystander who tried to help put the fire out.

The Palisades Fire began on New Year's Day 2025 in the Pacific Palisades, a coastal neighbourhood in western Los Angeles, where firefighters responded to a small blaze and believed they had extinguished it. The flames, however, continued to smoulder underground before reigniting on January 7, driven by powerful Santa Ana winds and severe drought conditions worsened by climate change. The fire ultimately tore through roughly 23,000 acres (9,300 hectares), destroying thousands of structures and killing 12 people. It is now recorded as the ninth deadliest wildfire in California's history and the third most destructive in terms of buildings lost.

Prosecutors say Rinderknecht was the only person near the hilltop where the fire originated that evening. Assistant US Attorney Matt O'Brien told jurors that security camera footage places him at the ignition site, and that cellular data corroborates his presence there. Rinderknecht allegedly called emergency services 16 times in quick succession on the night of January 1. Investigators also recovered a barbecue lighter from his car that he admitted carrying with him on the trail. In a further piece of circumstantial evidence, prosecutors showed jurors a prompt Rinderknecht had entered into the AI chatbot ChatGPT roughly six months before the fire, describing