Suspect confessed to setting Spokane wildfire that destroyed hundreds of buildings

Aaron Farinacci confessed to setting the Old Trails Fire and told investigators he planned the blaze for weeks before igniting it, Spokane County authorities said. Police said the 37-year-old Spokane resident researched weather conditions, built a homemade ignition device and was later found with matches and a lighter near the scene.

The Old Trails Fire was one of three major wildfires that broke out on Saturday, Aug. 1, along with the Fairview Fire and Autumn Lane Fire. The fires spread across Spokane and Stevens counties, forced more than 60,000 people to evacuate and destroyed roughly 600 to more than 700 structures and buildings, leaving burned-out neighborhoods and mass displacement across the region. Farinacci was arrested after a witness saw him kneeling near the ignition site, officials said.

Farinacci made his first court appearance on Aug. 4 and was charged with first-degree arson for “knowingly and maliciously” causing the Old Trails Fire, the most destructive of the three blazes burning around Spokane. The arrest came even as Spokane County officials said on Aug. 3 that the cause of the fires remained under investigation, with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and Washington State Department of Natural Resources fire investigators still working the case.

The case has also drawn attention because of Farinacci’s background. Reports identified him as a convicted felon who had previously gone to prison for manslaughter in the 2010 killing of his father in Arizona. His alleged planning, combined with the weather research and the improvised ignition device, has sharpened scrutiny of how quickly authorities can detect and stop a deliberate fire before it turns into a regional disaster.

Governor Bob Ferguson declared a statewide wildfire emergency and later imposed a statewide ban on most outdoor and agricultural burning through Sept. 30, 2026, as firefighters continued battling the cluster around Spokane. The response underscored how quickly a suspected act of arson can become a sprawling public-safety crisis, with evacuation centers filling, homes lost and the cost of rebuilding climbing across multiple counties.