Two men are said to have been caught on camera dumping gasoline and setting it alight immediately before the devastating Palisades fire broke out, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.
A resident of the ritzy celeb-packed area reported the video to a senior firefighter once the flames had started consuming the area.
‘By then we were too busy,’ the firefighter told DailyMail.com. ‘We told him to take the video to the police.’
But what happened to the footage remains a mystery as cops have not confirmed that the uncontrollable blaze, which has caused damage in the billions of dollars, was set deliberately.
News of the video comes amid growing suspicions of arson or foul play after one person was arrested for allegedly starting another blaze, the Kenneth Fire, on Thursday, police said. The man has not been charged.
Two days before that incident, a senior firefighter was one of the first on the scene battling the original Palisades blaze with his crew on North Piedra Morada Drive at the top of the Highlands Palisades neighborhood, when a resident approached him with a shocking claim.
‘We had a resident come to us and said he got a video of two men dumping gas and lighting it off,’ said the LAFD official, who asked to remain anonymous.
The subsequent fire grew to almost 20,000 acres and wiped out most of the elite Pacific Palisades neighborhood.
A resident reported video of two men allegedly lighting a fire moments before the devastating Palisades fire broke out, a senior firefighter told DailyMail.com
Thousands of vehicles – along with businesses and homes have been destroyed in the Palisades Fire
The devastation of the Palisades Fire is seen in the early morning in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, on Friday January 10
M
ulti-million-dollar houses destroyed by the fire include homes belonging to stars Miles Teller, Anna Faris, Paris Hilton, Eugene Levy, Anthony Hopkins, and Billy Crystal.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department responded to DailyMail.com’s request for comment but failed to answer questions about reports of arson, despite repeated requests.
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department told DailyMail.com they ‘have not received any reports of arson’ related to the Palisades Fire.
Investigators are considering an array of possible ignition sources for the apocalyptic, fast-moving fires, but so far there has been no official indication of arson in the blazes. Sparking utility lines, one of the most common ignitors of wildfires, have not been identified as a cause either.
Some residents of North Piedra Morada Drive have an alternative theory for what started the devastating blaze – that it was caused by New Years Eve fireworks, which caused a burn that lay dormant for almost a week before reigniting in the high, dry Santa Ana winds.
A brushfire sparked around 12:20am on New Years Day, after residents reported hearing fireworks in the area.
Fireworks are illegal everywhere in LA City, partly due to the fire risk they create.
LAFD rushed to the scene, dumped water from helicopters and extinguished the fire by 3am that night.
A man was arrested on suspicion of deliberately setting the Kenneth Fire in the West Hills section of Los Angeles, on Thursday, police said. He has not been charged
Paris Hilton’s Malibu home is one of thousands that have been destroyed in the Palisades Fire. ‘My heart has shattered into a million pieces,’ the heiress wrote
Hollywood stars, including actor Henry Winkler, have taken to social media to claim the fires are acts of arson. Winkler’s X post swiftly went viral with some fans pledging their support to him and others lambasting him for spreading panic
Khloe Kardashian also voiced her outrage after LAPD confirmed a man suspected of arson was in custody. ‘You sick mother f**kers!’ she wrote
Residents of the hilltop street where the Palisades Fire began told DailyMail.com they saw it grow on the morning of Tuesday January 7 from the ‘exact’ spot where firefighters extinguished the fire a week earlier, in the early hours of January 1.
It left them wondering whether the fire continued to smolder underground for a week, a common occurrence with wildfires, until low humidity and high winds allowed it a chance to erupt above ground.
Andrew Hires, a University of Southern California neuroscience professor who lives on North Piedra Morada Drive where the giant wildfire began, heard the fireworks on January 1, and was one of the first to spot the re-emerged fire on Tuesday.
‘We were in bed on Piedra Morada. There were a bunch of fireworks that went off that we could hear,’ he told DailyMail.com. ‘Twenty minutes later a fire was called in.
‘I woke back up at 2am and there was a pretty well-involved fire right at the top of the Temescal Ridge trailhead, which is a place where a lot of people hike, and a little spot where people might hang out. The choppers and fire department put it out.
But he said at 8am on Tuesday he and his wife were outside and smelled smoke.
‘I went up there to check it out. I couldn’t find any smoke up there. At 9.06am I got some video of the area, rode my bike back down, and took my daughter to the dentist.
‘Then I got a text with a photo of the fire in the exact spot where the fire was on January 1,’ said the 45-year-old father.
‘How did that start? I don’t know. But the precise overlap of the starting locations would suggest that it’s related to the January 1 fire.’
The Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) say they are investigating the origins of the Palisades Fire but have not yet determined an official cause.
Fans quickly commented on Winkler’s post with one writing: ‘I’ve been watching all day and night. How is it possible for the fires to keep jumping for miles and miles. How did the Hollywood Hills fire start? I’m starting to wonder if it is arsonists or terrorists or both’
Videos of the January 1 blaze, named the Lachman Fire by LACoFD, as well as audio from police and fire department radios beginning around 12.30am, were documented on the app Citizen.
An officer on the radio said the fire was around Via Las Palmas and Via La Costa, at the top of the Highlands community of the Palisades.
LACoFD said the Palisades Fire began a little after 10am on January 7 and gave a location of 1190 North Piedra Morada Drive, down the street from Hires’s house.
Footage from one AlertCal public safety webcam in the area shows smoke first beginning to rise from the hill at 10:23am.
Anger is rising as the immense damage from the series of fires that have hit Los Angeles continues to grow.
Talk that some may have been deliberately set has outraged residents, including Hollywood’s elite, some of whom have issued public calls for the suspected Kenneth Fire arsonist to be punished.
Police confirmed a man was taken into custody after being held and zip-tied by neighbors who caught him in the act in the Woodland Hills area of LA.
‘A suspect was detained over in Woodland Hills area by citizens. It is being investigated as a crime,’ LAPD senior lead officer Charles Dinsel said.
When asked if he believed the fire was set intentionally he said: ‘At this time, that’s what we believe. Yes.’
‘THERE IS an ARSONIST here in LA,’ actor Henry Winkler, 79, wrote in a now-viral X post. ‘May you be beaten you unrecognizable!!! (sic) The pain you have caused!!!’
Khloe Kardashian, whose famous family has donated $2,500 worth of meals to first responders, also took to her Instagram Stories to slam the suspect.
‘You sick mother f**kers!’ the reality TV star, 40, wrote: ‘What the f**k is wrong with people?!?! Arson!!!! May you be fully prosecuted!!! What scum!!!’
Heroic firefighters are seen responding to the Kenneth Fire in the West Hills section of Los Angeles, Thursday, January 9
The charred remains of homes are all that is left in huge swathes of the ritzy Pacific Palisades neighborhood after the massive blaze was unable to be contained
Residents are only now beginning to return to their neighborhoods, often to learn they’ve lost everything
Read More
Furious celebs vent anger as man is arrested over devastating LA fires
Singer Chris Brown also had his suspicions, writing: ‘Someone starting these fires. S**t don’t add up.’
TV personality Elizabeth Chambers chimed in, telling her fans it ‘feels like this is a lot more than nature’.
Winkler’s home in the Brentwood neighborhood was in an evacuation zone for the Palisades fire – the largest of the fires burning in the LA area.
The Palisades fire has destroyed over 5,300 structures, with firefighters hardly able to contain any of it.
After confirmation that a suspected arsonist had been arrested, Winkler updated his initial post, adding: ‘One in custody so far.’
Winkler’s fans quickly commented on his posts with one writing: ‘I’ve been watching all day and night. How is it possible for the fires to keep jumping for miles and miles. How did the Hollywood Hills fire start? I’m starting to wonder if it is arsonists or terrorists or both.’
The Kenneth Fire began at Victory Trailhead around 2:30pm on Thursday.
‘About 20-30 minutes later a suspect was detained over in Woodland Hills area by citizens,’ Dinsel told NewsNation.
Across Los Angeles some 180,000 people have been given mandatory evacuation orders, while another 200,000 have been put on alert and warned to consider fleeing their homes
The Malibu coastline was decimated by the Palisades wildfire
‘It is being investigated as a crime.’
A resident called 911 to report a man attempting to set a fire at the 21700 block of Ybarra Road in Woodland Hills at around 4:30pm on Thursday.
‘We were sitting in the backyard and suddenly, we hear a car come to a screeching halt and the guy is running out saying, “Stop! Drop what you’re holding! Neighbors, he’s trying to start a fire! Call 911!”‘ witness Renata Grinshpun told local TV news station KTLA.
Grinshpun said neighbors tackled the man and zip-tied his hands before police arrived.
The suspect was arrested and taken to Topanga police station.
LAPD did not confirm the man started the Kenneth fire, and at 11:30pm on Thursday night a spokesman told DailyMail.com they have ‘no booking information’ for the individual, declining to release his name.
The Kenneth Fire quickly spread west to about 1,000 acres by Thursday evening.
DailyMail.com spoke to a second senior, current LAFD official who claimed that about half the fires they respond to in their jurisdiction are caused by homeless people.
‘They call them vegetation fires, or rubbish fires, but it’s homeless people,’ the official, who spoke anonymously, told DailyMail.com.
‘If the public knew the truth and classified it correctly, the public may be outraged.
‘If you included medical incidents, it comes up to about 70% of callouts,’ the 25-year department veteran said.
‘It’s astronomical. They’re running these guys into the ground.’
