Is The Fonz right about an L.A. arsonist?

Should Henry Winkler be canceled for not mentioning climate change?

From the Daily Mail:

LA Fire Department responds to Henry Winkler's shock claim about cause of blazes

By EVE BUCKLAND FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: 15:55 EST, 9 January 2025

The LA fire Department has responded after Henry Winkler made a shock claim about the cause of the California blazes.

Amid the destruction sparked by the Pacific Palisades fire, the Happy Days icon, 79, took to X with an an incendiary message blaming foul play.

He wrote: 'THERE IS an ARSONIST here in LA . May you be beaten you unrecognizable !!! The pain you have caused !!!'

His claims swiftly went viral with some fans pledging their support to him and others lambasting him for spreading panic.

An LA Fire Department official has responded to the claim via TMZ, saying 'there's no way to know at this moment exactly where and how the series of fires started, but an investigation is underway.'

The LA Fire team investigating each fire is the arson squad, but that is matter of course for every major fire, and does not confirm arson, the official said.

Shortly after The Fonz posted on Thursday, the Kenneth Fire broke out in Hidden Hills at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. This quickly spread to over a square mile engulfed, but, with modest wind velocities, aerial assault and ground-based firemen quickly knocked it down.

But not before a howling alert went out at about 4 pm to the cell phones of 10 million Southern Californians telling them to evacuate NOW. From NBC News:

Evacuation alert sent in error to phones of nearly 10 million L.A.-area residents

A second alert followed the first, explaining that it was meant only for people near the Kenneth Fire, a new brush fire that ignited Thursday afternoon.

Upon hearing the alert, I looked out the window, saw that the wind was barely blowing, then turned on the TV and saw they were talking about a new fire 15 miles west of me, and calmed down.

On the other hand, it’s not a totally bad idea to encourage residents to have a Go Bag packed. Still, this false alarm propagated to 10 million people probably got a few killed from heart attacks and car crashes.

The cops arrested a dark-looking homeless man in his 30s after a mob of good-hearted people grabbed him while he was trying to start more fires.

From Newsweek:

Renata Grinshpun, who witnessed the suspect being detained, told KTLA: "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!"

The man had what appeared to be a large "propane tank or a flamethrower" and a neighbor saw him trying to light an object on fire behind a vehicle, she said.

She added: "We really banded together as a group. A few gentlemen surrounded him and got him on his knees. They got some zip ties, a rope and we were able to do a citizens' arrest."

This doesn’t mean that arsonists are responsible for all the current Los Angeles fires, just that it would hardly be surprising if the firebugs weren’t excited by the initial fires and piled on.

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