A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panel this week will hear the perspective of firefighters and emergency management experts marking the one year anniversary of destructive wildfires in California.
The Palisades Fire destroyed more than 15,000 structures and burned 45,000 acres in early January 2025. Twelve people died. Officials say it was the reignition of a fire that had been deliberately set, and supposedly extinguished, days earlier.
A former Uber driver who’d lived in the area, Jonathan Rinderknecht, was charged with arson, destruction of property by fire and setting timber on fire. The case is pending in federal court.
While it wasn’t a typical forest fire, the Palisades blaze has charged debates in Congress around forest management, community preparation and other issues around fires on federal land. The fear: that fires that start on federal land will spread into populated areas and unleash similar damage.
