As Feds Move to Charge Uber Driver for Some LA Fires, Prosecutors Fail to Hold Fossil Fuel Companies Accountabile

Federal prosecutors today charged Uber driver Jonathan Rinderknech with setting a fire on New Year’s Eve 2024 that eventually grew to devastate the Los Angeles community of Pacific Palisades. The fire, which was initially contained by the Los Angeles Fire Department after burning 7 acres, rekindled itself as a windstorm blowing across the Santa Ana Mountains drove the fire into the community. At the time of the fires, Southern California was in the middle of the driest 9-month period in over 150 years. In response, Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, issued the following statement:

“The person who lit a spark that turned into the horrific Los Angeles fires should face accountability for their recklessness. But let’s be clear—that spark wasn’t the most impactful cause of those fires.

“A fire not only requires a spark, but the tinder to fuel the flames. What created the fuel that turned a spark into the catastrophe that destroyed lives and homes across the region in January was climate change, which drove the reduced rainfall, dried out vegetation, and increasing overlap between flammable drought conditions and Santa Ana winds that caused the conditions for the firestorm.

“These climate effects were the direct, foreseeable—and, in fact, foreseen—consequences of a small number of fossil fuel companies that knowingly generated a huge portion of all the greenhouse gas emissions that caused these fire conditions, and fraudulently deceived the public to block and delay solutions that could have ameliorated this catastrophe. If prosecutors want to hold the actors who are responsible for this disaster to account, they should also be pursuing these Big Oil companies.”