Speaker 1: Already and this this is the Daily Art.
Speaker 2: This is the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Monday,
Speaker 1: the thirteenth of October. I'm Lucy Passel, I'm Billy fit
Speaker 1: Simon's The California fires earlier this year burned thousands of
Speaker 1: acres of land, destroyed homes and businesses, saw more than
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people flee for shelter, and directly killed
Speaker 1: thirty one people. Now, US authorities alleged one man was responsible.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, we'll explain what we know about the
Speaker 1: man accused of starting the La fires and the alleged
Speaker 1: involvement of chat GBT.
Speaker 2: Lucy. This story of the LA fires, I feel like
Speaker 2: it was the first big news story of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It happened early in January, and it's easy to forget,
Speaker 2: I guess because we are on the other side of
Speaker 2: the world, just how big this was, how catastrophic it was.
Speaker 2: It was just it was massive news. Yeah, for anyone
Speaker 2: who perhaps says forgotten some of the details. Do you
Speaker 2: want to just refresh our minds?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely. It was our first week back of full
Speaker 1: time work here at the daily os kind of the
Speaker 1: second week of January. There were two major fires that
Speaker 1: developed around the same time, and two smaller fires, but
Speaker 1: the two main fires were the Palisades Fire and the
Speaker 1: Eton Fire. They were named after the areas that they burned,
Speaker 1: and as anyone who was on Australia's East coast during
Speaker 1: the pre Covid Black Summer would know, when you have
Speaker 1: a fire that big, even if it's just in one
Speaker 1: part of a city, it affects a huge area. So
Speaker 1: smoke was really blowing everywhere. A lot of it was
Speaker 1: blowing out to the ocean, but it sort of felt
Speaker 1: like something that was affecting in my memory, the whole
Speaker 1: US West coast, and by the eighth of January local time,
Speaker 1: the neighborhoods of Alta Dina and the Pacific Palisades had
Speaker 1: effectively been wiped out by fire, like thousands of homes
Speaker 1: and businesses destroyed.
Speaker 2: And I remember a big conversation at the time was
Speaker 2: what caused this? Because what was confusing was that it
Speaker 2: was winter there. What did we know at the time about.
Speaker 1: What had caused it. Yeah, I think we think of
Speaker 1: fires as being exclusively a summer thing, particularly here in Australia.
Speaker 1: What was interesting for me to learn at the time
Speaker 1: was La Mayor Karen Bass said the fires had been
Speaker 1: stoked by winds that are normal for that time of year.
Speaker 1: She said it came from a combination of quote hurricane
Speaker 1: force winds and extremely dry drought conditions. So there's a
Speaker 1: phenomenon in LA's cooler month. It's called the Santa Ana winds,
Speaker 1: and they blow in to La from the desert in
Speaker 1: the east of the city out towards the ocean, increasing
Speaker 1: the risk of fires because it dries out vegetation. Sort
Speaker 1: of the same logic as what causes fire here, which
Speaker 1: is if you have a lot of very dry vegetation,
Speaker 1: that increases fire risk. It's just that that tends to
Speaker 1: happen in Australia more in summer, particularly if it's an
Speaker 1: El Nino summer, if things are very dry. So on
Speaker 1: top of these kind of seasonal winter winds, they also
Speaker 1: had extreme drought in particularly in central and southern California,
Speaker 1: which is where Los Angeles is, Okay.
Speaker 2: So we know that there were extremely dry conditions and
Speaker 2: that there were also these dangerous winds that exacerbated the
Speaker 2: possibility of a fire, and that eventuated in these extremely
Speaker 2: catastrophic fires. But why we're talking about it today is
Speaker 2: because we have learned or there is an allegation that
Speaker 2: there was someone who potentially actually started the fires.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So last week we got a press release from
Speaker 1: the US Department of Justice aka the DOJ saying authorities
Speaker 1: had arrested a man in the state of Florida, quote
Speaker 1: alleging he malicious started what became the Palisades fire.
Speaker 2: Wow, And so what do we know about him?
Speaker 1: We know that the accused is a twenty nine year
Speaker 1: old man. His name is Jonathan Rindanek. He was in
Speaker 1: California at the time. He's since been staying with family
Speaker 1: in Florida on the other side of the country. In
Speaker 1: December twenty twenty four and January twenty twenty five, he
Speaker 1: was in California working as an uber driver, And the
Speaker 1: DOJ's press release actually told us that authorities interviewed him
Speaker 1: for the first time at the end of January twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, so only a couple of weeks after those fires,
Speaker 1: which tells us they've been working on this for a while.
Speaker 1: And I keep saying authorities because we're not specifically talking
Speaker 1: about police. So we've got the DOJ, which represents the
Speaker 1: people of the US in federal cases. Like you might
Speaker 1: hear a case called the people versus Xyzed, so that's
Speaker 1: criminal cases. Yeah, so that's the same way that in Australia,
Speaker 1: because our head of state is King Charles, we would
Speaker 1: say the Crown versus Xyz. It would be represented as
Speaker 1: are if you've ever seen it illegal listing, I'm digressing.
Speaker 1: We've got the DOJ, and we also have the US
Speaker 1: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives aka ATF involved
Speaker 1: in this case. And the main source that I'm using
Speaker 1: here is an APHA davit filed by ATF Special Agent
Speaker 1: William Shriye who's based in la and his affidavit says
Speaker 1: his responsibility includes identifying the origins and causes of fires.
Speaker 1: So you've got this kind of federal bureau, you've got
Speaker 1: this guy within it who's filed this affidavit of evidence
Speaker 1: that authorities say suggests rindern Neck was responsible.
Speaker 2: And what kind of evidence do they have?
Speaker 1: So shri laid out a lot of evidence. It's argued
Speaker 1: the Palisades fires specifically was a quote holdover from a
Speaker 1: fire that Rinderneck allegedly intentionally started on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1: It's alleged he dropped off some Uber passengers just before
Speaker 1: midnight and then drove up to the Pacific Palisades area,
Speaker 1: went up to the beginning of a walking trail, and
Speaker 1: lit a fire. A nearby resident actually spotted the blaze
Speaker 1: and called emergency services. It's also alleged that rinder Neck
Speaker 1: was trying to call emergency services as he walked back
Speaker 1: to his car, but couldn't get through.
Speaker 2: To inform them.
Speaker 1: Yes, It's alleged he fled the scene in his car,
Speaker 1: but then drove back and watched firefighters fighted and recorded
Speaker 1: video on his phone. Although firefighters thought they had contained
Speaker 1: the fire, it's been suggested that it actually continued to
Speaker 1: burn underground through route networks before resurfacing and spreading due
Speaker 1: to heavy winds a few days later. Prosecutors say Rindnik
Speaker 1: lied to authorities about his location in a police interview,
Speaker 1: claiming that he was at the bottom of a hiking
Speaker 1: trail when he saw the fire and tried to call
Speaker 1: nine one one. But they say they have geolocation data
Speaker 1: from his phone that they say puts him nine meters
Speaker 1: from the fire when he first attempted to call emergency services.
Speaker 1: So this is all evidence that hasn't yet been tested
Speaker 1: in court.
Speaker 2: It's just allegations.
Speaker 1: It's just allegations and shries Affi. David also includes a
Speaker 1: detail that allegedly Rindanak had a chat GPT generated image
Speaker 1: of a city on fire in his phone.
Speaker 2: I have seen this around, so he asked chat gpt
Speaker 2: to create an image of la on fire.
Speaker 1: Yes, with he kind of described it as one side
Speaker 1: should have people burning and one side should be behind
Speaker 1: a wall that shows people laughing at the people burning, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: And it's also alleged that in the early hours of
Speaker 1: January first, twenty twenty five, so after it's alleged he
Speaker 1: lit this fire. He allegedly Sorry, so many allegedlies. We
Speaker 1: just have to be careful. He entered a prompt to
Speaker 1: chat GPT that said, quote, are you at fault if
Speaker 1: a fire is lit because of your cigarettes? And the
Speaker 1: chat GPT response was yes.
Speaker 2: Wow, I didn't realize how big of a role chat
Speaker 2: GPT allegedly played in this. That was a surprise to
Speaker 2: me too. Yeah, do we know what happens to rinder
Speaker 2: neck now? I presume it now needs to go to trial.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it needs to go to trial. He is being
Speaker 1: held in jail for the foreseeable future. We don't know
Speaker 1: when a trial will happen. We know that since authorities
Speaker 1: first interviewed him in late January, they've presumably been building
Speaker 1: their case all this time. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different factors that go into when something goes to trial.
Speaker 1: So his defense lawyers have to be briefed, the prosecution
Speaker 1: has to put their case together. You have to find
Speaker 1: availability for a judge to hear a trial. I assume
Speaker 1: you'll be they'll be finding a jury. Yeah, there's all
Speaker 1: these different kind of stages that need to happen. So
Speaker 1: I would imagine it would be next year, but it
Speaker 1: may even be the year after.
Speaker 2: Legal processes do tend to take a long time. Yes,
Speaker 2: before we go. What has the reaction been to this news?
Speaker 1: So after authorities announced that they had arrested and charged him,
Speaker 1: acting Federal Attorney Bill Assie alleged Rindernak's quote recklessness had
Speaker 1: caused the fire, resulting in quote death and widespread destruction.
Speaker 1: He said, while we cannot bring back what victims lost,
Speaker 1: we hope this criminal case brings some measure of justice
Speaker 1: to those affected, and then California Governor Gavin Newsom said
Speaker 1: the arrest was a step closer to quote uncovering how
Speaker 1: the horrific Palisades fire began and bringing closure to the
Speaker 1: thousands of Californians whose lives were upended. I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of a good note to end on, is to
Speaker 1: think about the fact that there's all, i mean, thousands
Speaker 1: of people who lost their homes less than a year ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're still rebuilding. Yeah, you know, their lives,
Speaker 2: their homes, everything. Yeah, LaSIE, thank you so much for explaining.
Speaker 2: Thanks Billy, and thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: To this episode of The Daily OS. Will be back
Speaker 1: as always this.
Speaker 2: Afternoon with your evening headlines, But until then, have a
Speaker 2: great day.
Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
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