California Man Arrested For Starting Palisades Fire That Bernie Sanders Blamed On Climate Change

Well, well, well, what have we here? Turns out the climate change fanatics were once again wrong. Who would have ever guessed it?

This all dates back to the horrific, devastating fire that destroyed the overwhelming majority of Pacific Palisades. 

Remember: The Palisades at large, once one of the most beautiful parts of Los Angeles and the state, was obliterated but Rick Caruso's Palisades Village shopping center was generally unharmed. Because Caruso paid private firefighters to protect it. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, meanwhile, had a contest to see who could be more prolifically and violently incompetent. Bass was on a taxpayer-funded jaunt to Ghana, for some reason. Newsom and state Democrats have steadfastly refused to engage in sane fire prevention efforts. 

There were real, human causes for why the fire was so destructive. And now there's a real, human face allegedly behind the cause of it. Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced on X Wednesday morning that they'd arrested a 29-year-old man, Jonathan Rinderknecht, on a criminal complaint that charged him with "maliciously starting what became the Palisades Fire."

In the real world, this makes sense. Someone or something started the fire. It didn't just spontaneously happen. In the world of climate change fanaticism? It's the opposite. Climate change started it, and Donald Trump would make it worse. Sounds absurd, right? And yet that's precisely what climate extremist and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said at the time.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (L) (D-NY) greets Sen. Bernie Sanders (R) (I-VT) before the two spoke at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol March 21, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Bernie Sanders Blames Climate Change For Arson

Here's what Sanders posted on X as the fires were raging in LA. 

"80,000 people told to evacuate. Blazes 0% contained. Eight months since the area has seen rain. The scale of damage and loss is unimaginable.

"Climate is real, not ‘a hoax.' Donald Trump must treat this like the existential crisis it is."

Just nine months later, a man has been arrested for allegedly starting the climate change fire. As usual.

Not only was Sanders once again wrong, but he was trying to push blame or culpability onto Donald Trump when Trump wasn't even in office yet. He wasn't inaugurated until January 20. In what world was this even remotely related to him? 

It wasn't. But Sanders wanted to point people to his religion, climate change worship, and Trump has correctly identified that such religious beliefs are based on several false viewpoints. That wasn't the only thing Sanders got wrong. 

LA did get rain ahead of the fires. It rained on November 2 and the November 27, as well as on December 24, just a few weeks before the fires broke out. It was a drier than average start to the rainy season in Southern California, but that's not too unusual. Especially in a La Nina fall-winter. 

On average, LA sees the vast majority of its rain come from December-May. The city averages roughly a quarter inch of rain from June until October. And sure enough, LA got roughly 7.5" of rain from January-May in 2025, when the average is 9.85". Below normal, but not some extreme, catastrophic outlier. 

But that's the magic of climate change, it can be used to explain whatever you want it to explain. Even a human-caused fire.