{"id":299024,"date":"2025-10-13T04:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299024\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T04:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T04:36:10","slug":"holdover-fires-extremely-difficult-to-detect-lafd-says-nbc-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/299024\/","title":{"rendered":"Holdover fires \u2018extremely difficult to detect,\u2019 LAFD says \u2013 NBC Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten months after the Palisades Fire devastated homes and businesses, officials announced Wednesday they had arrested<\/a> someone they believe started the flames.<\/p>\n

However, Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man they took into custody, did not spark the fire on Jan. 7. Instead, the Palisades Fire was a result of what is called a \u201choldover\u201d fire that began six days earlier.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man whom authorities arrested, is accused of starting the Lachman Fire, which began in the early hours of New Year\u2019s Day. Although firefighters managed to put out the flames above ground, LAFD Interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva said it remained burning underground.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Jan. 7 fire was not a rekindle or due to failed suppression, but the reactivation of an undetectable holdover fire under extraordinary wind conditions,\u201d Villanueva said in a statement on Thursday. \u201cHoldover fires can be nearly impossible to detect with infrared imaging, as smoldering often occurs deep below the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the strong Santa Ana winds picked up on Jan. 7, the Lachman Fire was reactivated, according to the LAFD. Extreme winds, combined with low humidity and prolonged drought, can lead to holdover fires to emerge and reignite above ground, Villanueva said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a fire looks like it\u2019s out, it could be down in the roots of the vegetation,\u201d said Char Miller, director of environmental analysis at Pomona College. \u201cAt some point, that vegetation, because it\u2019s weakened by the fire that\u2019s just stayed in its roots, can flash out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe LA City Fire Department said many firefighters were allowed to go home after their shift despite the dangerously windy conditions. Robert Kovacik, Erik Leonard and Conan Nolan report for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025,\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The fire department said holdover fires take the form of underground combustion, even after any visible flames appear to be out. These fires, also known as \u201csleeper fires,\u201d can reignite 10 to 20 days after they seem to be fully contained, the LAFD said.<\/p>\n

The LAFD said Southern California\u2019s dry chaparral ecosystem is highly flammable, making holdover fires more common and hard to predict. Chaparral species, including manzanita and chamise, have lignified root systems that can go as deep as 25 feet below the surface, meaning thermal imaging cameras may be unable to detect holdover fires, the fire department said.<\/p>\n

Officials said that for heat to be detected by thermal imaging devices, it must conduct through the soil and radiate outward. The dry soils where the Lachman Fire occurred prevented it from being detected underground because only the upper inch or two may show noticeable temperature differences, according to the LAFD.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really not that unusual,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIn this case, because it was an urban conflagration, it had way more devastation. (It was) so difficult to deal with as a result.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Rinderknecht\u2019s arrest was made public, the LAFD released a report<\/a> on Wednesday regarding how it handled the Palisades Fire. The report contains a timeline of both the Lachman and Palisades Fires, as well as the nearly 100 \u201cchallenges\u201d and 83 \u201csuccesses\u201d the fire department experienced in their response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten months after the Palisades Fire devastated homes and businesses, officials announced Wednesday they had arrested someone they…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":299025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337,6278,5609],"class_list":{"0":"post-299024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-pacific-palisades","14":"tag-wildfires"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115365005649021275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}