The Brief

At around midnight on Jan. 1, 2025, Jonathan Rinderknecht started the Lachman Fire in the hills of the Pacific Palisades, according to a federal indictment released Wednesday.

The fire was kept small that night — contained to just 8 acres by helicopters and hand crews from the L.A. city and county fire departments. Six days later, as strong and dry winds whipped across the Santa Monica Mountains, its remnants erupted from within the ground, quickly spreading through nearby communities and taking on the name the Palisades Fire.

On Wednesday, officials revealed that Palisades, one of California’s most devastating blazes, was a “holdover fire.”

“Unbeknownst to anyone, the fire continued to smolder and burn underground, within the root structure of dense vegetation,” reads the criminal complaint filed against Rinderknecht in the Central District of California. “On Jan. 7, heavy winds caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground.”

Fires, mop up and reignition 

Typically, after a wildfire is extinguished, firefighters walk the area and “mop up.” They look for evidence that anything still is burning and extinguish it.

"It's a lot of man hours to do mop up,” said Derek Bart, a retired L.A. County Fire captain who described the process of spraying ash pits with water and digging up smoldering roots as exhausting and mind numbing.

And sometimes, tiny embers can be missed.

“There may be things that are not visible to your eye,” Bart said. “You can't smell them. It's not putting out any smoke.”

Bart said he’s seen that with oak trees, where embers will creep deep into crevices, slowly burn the interior of the tree over time before catching on fire again and spreading embers to nearby grassy areas.

LAist reached out to the Los Angeles Fire Department about the mop up after the Lachman Fire but did not receive a response before publication.

The science of smoldering

Big, visible flames are produced when fuel heats up to the point that it chemically degrades, and the vapor coming off mixes with oxygen and combusts.

Underground, smoldering combustion occurs as the surface of the fuel itself burns; however, due to lower oxygen levels, flames aren’t produced.

Rotten roots are particularly vulnerable to smoldering because they have lots of fissures, which expose surface area, and small amounts of oxygen can creep in and sustain the burning, said Scott Stephens, a fire scientist at UC Berkeley.

“It really is more common than I think people realize,” Stephens said.

It just doesn’t usually reignite another fire.

However, those bits of smoldering material can be as small as a quarter and continue to burn for months, sometimes through winter. Strong, dry winds can get things going again.

Something along those lines is believed to have happened during the Oakland Hills Fire in 1991, when a rekindle from an earlier, smaller fire kicked back up. Twenty-five people died and 400 homes were lost in that fire.

How do you know when it’s safe?

After fire crews mop up, be on the lookout for flames or smoke coming from the area for weeks or months after the event occurs.

And be ready to call the fire department, who can come back out and tackle the blaze.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Campaign donations are both a measure of popular support and a sign of which candidates special interests believe they can influence. CalMatters analyzed campaign finance data in the California governor’s race. Here are five takeaways on where the money is coming from and where it’s going.

Outside money is shattering records

It’s a record-breaking election when it comes to spending by corporations and special interest groups trying to influence who becomes the next governor.

Outside groups, which unlike candidates can receive unlimited donations, reported spending $79 million so far — more than double the amount spent through the November 2018 general election when Gavin Newsom won his first term.

Billionaire Tom Steyer is the biggest target: A political spending committee called California Is Not For Sale, funded by the state Realtors association, the California Chamber of Commerce, Pacific Gas & Electric and the state’s electrical workers’ union poured $32 million into ads opposing him.

Steyer has vowed to lower electricity bills by challenging PG&E’s monopoly in much of Northern California. He’s also promised to pursue a ballot measure that would raise revenue for public services by requiring more accurate property tax assessments on business properties, a move that could upend the commercial real estate market.

Some of the same groups spending against Steyer are running ads for Xavier Becerra. Those groups — along with organizations representing doctors, contractors and several labor unions — have spent $13 million through PACs to boost Becerra.

Chevron, McDonald’s, dialysis giant DaVita and one of the state’s largest oil drillers, California Resources Corp., are funding one of the largest pro-Becerra groups, with each of them contributing $500,000. Meta and AirBnB chipped in about $1 million each and health insurance corporation Centene, which runs California-based HealthNet, put in $100,000.

Steyer is reveling in the spending against him, pointing to it as proof he’d stand up to utilities and big business. A climate activist, Steyer has highlighted Becerra’s support from Chevron.

The progressive unions California Nurses Association and United Domestic Workers have spent a comparatively modest $1.4 million on mailers and digital media boosting Steyer. Outside groups have also spent $1.8 million opposing Republican frontrunner Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host and British political strategist.

Mahan fizzles out

The second-highest outside spending went to boost Mahan, the San Jose mayor and moderate Democrat who entered the race late to much fanfare from Silicon Valley.

California’s tech billionaires urged Mahan to run and backed him with millions in donations and two independent spending committees. They were enamored with his platform of government efficiency and opposition to new taxes — positions that would shield them from the Legislature’s push to regulate tech and raise taxes on the wealthy.

Donors included venture capitalists Michael Moritz and Brian Singerman, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Intuit founder Scott Cook, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Los Angeles developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso.

The committees spent nearly $22 million on ads supporting Mahan, significantly more than the $9 million his campaign has spent. But the money wasn’t enough to overcome his significant disadvantage in name recognition as the first-term mayor of a city that doesn’t get much attention. Strategists told the committees’ backers they needed at least $45 million to make a difference.

One of the PACs, California Back to Basics, last week returned $1 million from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; Hastings cryptically posted on X that he hadn’t asked for the money back. The refund was an acknowledgement that the committee hadn’t succeeded in raking in a final $10 to $15 million the billionaire backers hoped to raise in the last weeks of the campaign, committee spokesperson Matt Rodriguez said.

Steyer spending breaking its own records

Yet despite his opponents’ deep-pocketed donors, no one has matched the $213 million Steyer has spent on his own campaign, allowing him to blanket the airwaves with ads, pay influencers to post videos with him and send billboard trucks to drive around gas stations highlighting Becerra’s Chevron support.

That makes his the most expensive primary campaign in California gubernatorial history, exceeding that of former eBay executive Meg Whitman, a Republican who spent about $94 million in the June 2010 primary — about $142 million in today’s dollars — spending tens of millions more before losing to Jerry Brown in the general election.

California gubernatorial candidates during a debate hosted by CBS Bay Area and the San Francisco Examiner in San Francisco on May 14, 2026.

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Godofredo A. Vásquez

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Swalwell donors flocked to Becerra

DaVita, the California Medical Association and the California Professional Firefighters Association all supported former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial bid before he dropped out over sexual assault allegations.

They were among the biggest Swalwell backers to quickly switch to Becerra, who has enjoyed surging support from social media and the Democratic establishment.

Small donors made a similar leap. The CalMatters analysis found that after Swalwell dropped out, more than 500 of his campaign donors went on to contribute to Becerra’s campaign. No other candidate received that much support from former Swalwell donors.

Swalwell, who has also since resigned from Congress, continues to use his gubernatorial campaign to pay more than $313,000 to attorney Sara Azari, who is defending him against the allegations. He has also refunded about $250,000 to nearly 50 donors.

Republican Steve Hilton had the most donors

The Republican frontrunner amassed the highest number of campaign donors in the race: more than 20,000. Nearly a quarter of them live outside California.

The former Fox News host seeks to slash state environmental regulations, build housing on undeveloped suburban land and cut income taxes for the middle class. He received a slight uptick in donations after President Donald Trump endorsed him on April 6.

Katie Porter, the Democratic former congressmember from Orange County and consumer protection attorney, had the second-highest number of donors, with more than 15,000.

She also has the highest share of donors outside California, reflecting her relative national fame from her headline-grabbing time grilling corporate CEOs in Congress.

But fundraising stalled for the onetime progressive darling, who touts her reliance on grassroots donors and refusal to take corporate contributions. From April 18 through May 19 she brought in less money than Mahan.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

County leaders this summer may take up a vote to add a seat exclusively for Long Beach on the Los Angeles County Metro’s Board of Directors, the agency that oversees the nation’s second-largest transit system.

In a letter to a board committee on Tuesday, County Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose district includes Long Beach, argued that many of the county’s 88 cities are underrepresented on the agency’s board, leading to planning and funding decisions that favor the city of Los Angeles at the expense of farther-flung municipalities.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape a Metro Board that better represents the diversity of our vast county as well as the needs of people who regularly rely on Metro,” Hahn said. “Long Beach is the second-biggest city in L.A. County and a regional powerhouse. It’s time that its almost half a million residents had a dedicated, permanent voice on this Board, and I’m hoping that my colleagues on the Ad Hoc Board Composition Committee agree.”

Hahn also recommended adding a board seat for someone who rides the train regularly, as well as allowing board members to designate alternate members who can vote in their absence.

The board currently has 13 members who vote on contracts worth billions of dollars for construction, trains, computers and all the other hardware needed for a transit system to send riders from the coast to the Inland Empire.

Members include all five county supervisors, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and three seats she appoints. The remaining four seats are shared by 87 cities divided into four geographic areas: North County and San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Southeast County and Long Beach, and Southwest Corridor.

Long Beach shares the Southeast sector with 26 other cities, even though it accounts for a quarter of the sector’s weighted voting power — given its population of more than 462,000 — which gives it an incredible sway in who is elected to the seat.

The sector selects its leadership through an L.A. County City Selection Committee, which consists of 26 city representatives, who cast votes based on their population. Long Beach has 46 of the 164 total votes.

Breaking off Long Beach into its own seat would serve a dual purpose, Hahn said, of giving not only Long Beach better representation but also a better chance for the smaller cities to vie for the seat.

Several organizations expressed support for the new seat, including representatives from the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, the city of Long Beach, the Downtown Long Beach Alliance, Congressman Robert Garcia and Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson.

This comes as Richardson was appointed to the seat on Tuesday, filling a vacancy left behind by outgoing Whittier City Councilman Fernando Dutra. Richardson is expected to join the MTA board officially in July.

Talks to overhaul Metro’s leadership run parallel to other governance changes seen across Los Angeles County, which began with the voter-approved Measure G in 2024 to create an elected County CEO in 2028 and grow to a nine-member Board of Supervisors in 2032.

Given their schedule, the Metro Board could take the matter to a vote as early as July, though Hahn’s office says it may take time to iron out the details of the seat and how to handle its appointment process.

It reinvigorates a 2016 effort by then state Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, who tried to shake up leadership by lowering the board to two supervisor seats while adding eight members to the 14-member board, including representatives from Long Beach and other cities across the Southland.

The bill was ultimately shelved by state legislators and even opposed by members of the County Board of Supervisors at the time.

The story first appeared on LA Local.

A week after an underground pipeline near East Cesar E. Chavez and North Eastern avenues was punctured, questions remain about who was responsible.

Officials said early reports indicated a boring crew conducting directional drilling for a fiber optic line struck the 16-inch petroleum pipeline, which sent an estimated 2,400 gallons of crude oil onto nearby streets and into storm drains and the Los Angeles River. Streets in the area reopened Thursday after days of closures that disrupted nearby residents, businesses and schools, though more soil remediation remains ahead.

Spill report updates from the California Office of Emergency Services indicate that the reported cause of the spill was a “human error.”

Here’s what we know about the companies involved:

Who operated the pipeline?

The pipeline is operated by Pacific Pipeline System, which since 2006 has been owned by Plains All American Pipeline.

Who was drilling?

In the hours after the spill, Boyle Heights Beat reporters witnessed a truck labeled Camarillo Drilling Inc. A Camarillo Drilling representative told the Beat they were seeking counsel and could not confirm if they were working at the site.

A February 2026 report from the state Department of Water Resources notes that Camarillo Drilling Company, in April 2020, punctured the Santa Ana Pipeline in Riverside “while performing directional and horizontal boring during installation of an underground communications cable.”

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) filed a complaint against Camarillo Drilling in Riverside County Superior Court in April 2022, seeking damages of about $1.2 million to cover pipeline repair expenses and DWR staffing costs, according to the report. 

Why were they drilling?

NBC4 reported that HP Communications was behind the drilling of the fiber optic line. A representative with HP Communications told the Beat they could not comment or confirm that they were working at the site. 

HP Communications is one of the companies awarded a contract for the Broadband for All plan, a $6 billion state and federal investment to close the digital divide. 

The plan involves building a network of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances, according to LAist. About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable is being installed throughout California, including more than 500 miles in Los Angeles County. The state owns and manages the system.

Another company that was awarded a contract for the plan is Arcadian Infracom, which in 2023, held a groundbreaking event in Boyle Heights for the California portion of its L.A. to Phoenix fiber route, LAist reported in 2024.

The project will help serve residents in East L.A. and extend to communities in Barstow and Needles (The route totals 306 miles, but only 40 are within L.A. County limits).

What remains unknown?

It’s not clear if the drilling that led to the pipeline rupture is linked to the Broadband for All effort. Arcadian Infracom has not returned a request for comment regarding any potential involvement with the pipeline puncture. 

The California Department of Technology did not respond to Boyle Heights Beat’s questions in time for publication.

Pacific Pipeline System (PPS) has also not responded to questions regarding the third-party companies involved. 

A state investigation into how the pipe was struck remains ongoing. Supervisor Hilda Solis on Thursday said she’d work with the Board of Supervisors to ensure “every responsible party is held accountable and advancing stronger protections for impacted residents, communities, and small businesses.”

How to file a claim

Claims of damage believed to be caused by the spill can be submitted to PPS by calling (877) 817-5465. Callers will be prompted to leave their name and contact information in a voicemail for a representative to return the call.

According to the pipeline operator, some examples of claims that may be considered include: 

• Property damage
• Business interruption or loss of access
• Cleanup or remediation expenses
• Equipment, vehicle or inventory damage
• Other documented costs directly related to the incident

PPS will request contact information and a description of the claimed damages. The timeline for any potential compensation depends on the urgency of the claim, according to the spokesperson.

How to report air quality concerns

To report excessive odors, smoke, dust and other air contaminants, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice advises residents to contact the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) by calling (800) CUT SMOG or (800) 288-7664. 

Residents can also access South Coast AQMD’s online complaint system by clicking here. 

To report health concerns related to odors, residents can also contact the L.A. County Department of Public Health by calling (626) 430-9821 or by emailing DPH-OEJCH@ph.lacounty.gov.

You might have braved the process to get a seat at SoFi Stadium for one of the eight FIFA World Cup 2026 matches in L.A., or maybe you’re gearing up to head to a community watch party.

Either way, you can maximize the celebration, avoid traffic and save your wallet by taking transit.

LAist prepared the following guide to help folks get to and from the stadium, L.A. city watch parties and tips on using bikes and scooters to get around the region.

Getting to the stadium

L.A. Metro is the countywide transportation agency and is the official public transit provider for the World Cup matches in the city. It’s partnering with more than 10 regional transportation and charter providers to get people to and from the stadium.

Where is the stadium: All eight of the matches will be at SoFi Stadium, or L.A. Stadium, as it will be called during the World Cup. The address is 1001 S. Stadium Dr., Inglewood, CA 90301.

How do you get there on Metro: Metro is offering direct shuttle service to the stadium from several locations in L.A. and Orange counties:

• Hawthorne/Lennox Station
• Crenshaw Station
• LAX/Metro Transit Center
• Near LAX hotels
• El Camino College
• Harbor Gateway Transit Center
• Culver City Transit Center
• Torrance Transit Center
• Union Station
• Downtown Long Beach
• Downtown Santa Monica
• North Hollywood Station
• Pierce College Station
• ARTIC Anaheim Station 
• Newport Transportation Center

You can catch a stadium-bound shuttle at locations throughout L.A. and Orange Counties.

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L.A. Metro

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When: Shuttles to the stadium begin service at least three hours before kick-off depending on which location you’re leaving from, and they’ll run up to 90 minutes after the matches end.

How often: The shuttles will generally run every 10 minutes. For the Pierce College Station and Newport Transportation Center, the shuttles will run every 30 minutes.

How to pay: You can tap the fare machines directly with your credit or debit card. Or you can go old-school and use a physical or digital TAP card. There are several ways to get a TAP card, including using your smartphone or picking one up at a Metro station. Here is a page with more details and instructions.

How much: The same as usual: $1.75 one-way.

Ok, but how do I get to the shuttle locations?: There are a few different options.

The shuttle pick-up and drop-off locations are well-serviced by existing transit. You can use the Transit or L.A. Metro mobile apps to help with trip planning.

And yes, you can drive, too. For most of the shuttle locations, you can reserve parking via SpotHero on Metro’s official World Cup page. You can also use ride-share or taxi services.

The only pick-up and drop-off location that doesn’t have any kind of vehicle access, including rideshare, is the LAX Metro Transit Center. But that station is accessible by five different Metro bus lines and two rail lines.

Bonus: If you’re looking for a souvenir to commemorate your time on transit during the World Cup in L.A., make sure to pick up a special TAP card. You can see the designs and where to find each one here.

How to get to the watch parties

There are going to be more than 100 free watch parties in the city of L.A. at different park locations. It’s part of an initiative called Kick it in the Park. You can find out more about the watch parties here.

Some of the locations are accessible on Metro rail.

• MacArthur Park. You can take the B or D line to the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station.
• Seoul International Park. The D line stops at the Wilshire/Normandie Station, which is about a half mile away from the park. 
• Sycamore Grove. The A line stops at the Southwest Museum Station, which is less than half a mile from Sycamore Grove. 
• Stoner Recreation Center. The E Line stops at the Expo/Bundy Station, which is about half a mile away from Stoner Recreation Center.
• Cheviot Hills Recreation Center. The E Line Palms Station is just less than a mile away. 

Check out the city’s interactive website to learn which Metro, L.A. Dash or other regional transit can take you to the Kick it in the Park events.

Other cities in the county are also hosting watch parties, including Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Culver City.

Micro-mobility solutions

Taking a bike share or scooter could be helpful to get to and from transit stations or to go a short distance that isn’t well-served by transit. There are a few different options here:

• Metro Bike Share. Metro operates a fleet of regular and electric bikes that you can find at docking stations throughout L.A. Use the L.A. Metro app to find docking stations near you that have available bikes or to find stations where you can return the bike when you’re done using it. There are different prices depending on how long you anticipate needing a bike, and you can pay with your TAP card. 
  

• Lime. The private scooter and bike-share company recently expanded into the Valley and now offers a total of 15,000 vehicles in the city of L.A. Its vehicles are also accessible in West Hollywood and Long Beach. You can use the Lime or Uber apps to book the vehicles.

  The company is launching a “fan pass” this summer that includes 90 minutes of riding over the course of five days for about $13. You can purchase the fan pass more than once. It’ll be available between June 5th through July 12th. If you don't have access to the internet on your phone but still want to use a Lime vehicle, you can text "Unlock" to 415-463-3473. You will receive a text back with instructions on how to proceed from there.