Three large fires that flared up in eastern Washington state last weekend forced 67,000 people to evacuate and burned more than 850 structures.
Aaron Farinacci, a 37-year-old Washington man arrested for deliberately starting one of the fires, told law enforcement officials he planned the spark for weeks.
While being interviewed in custody, Farinacci told Spokane County Detective Michael Drapeau that fire “is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth,” according to Spokane County court documents released Wednesday.
Farinacci said he began planning the fire, now known as the Old Trails fire, approximately two weeks before Aug. 1. He told officers he “researched his weather app” to choose a day that would have “high winds, low humidity, sort of high heat.”
After conducting his research, Farinacci had the day “planned out, the weather was planned out” for conditions “ideal to start a fire” and “let the fire take its course.”
Farinacci said he meant for it to be “a large fire”, the documents state, but claims the fire quickly became larger than he intended.
Investigation reveals this is not Farinacci’s first arson
Though Farinacci planned the time of the fire weeks in advance, he did not decide on an exact location until the morning of, according to police.
While walking a four-mile loop that Farinacci said he walks every day, he stopped at several locations, officials said, before deciding on one where he knew the fire “was gonna get bad.”
Farinacci stood at the site for several minutes “arguing” and “fighting” with himself over starting the fire. During this time, Paul Child, who is credited with leading police to Farinacci, drove by with his grandson and saw Farinacci standing, looking at the nearby trees.
“He was bent over in the brush, acting nervous,” Child told The Associated Press Tuesday. “You get the feeling this guy’s up to something.”
There were three witnesses who saw Farinacci coming from the area of the fire, according to court documents, but Farinacci told an officer the witnesses did not know “the whole thing.”
Farinacci was arrested wearing a fanny pack containing a butane lighter, a pack of cigarettes and “rain ready, heavy duty, waterproof matches,” court documents said. Farinacci told officers he carries the matches to light his cigarette if his lighter goes out.
Farinacci initially denied being in the area where the fire started, but later “made statements against his interest” that included a full description of how he planned and executed the spread of the Old Trails Fire, court documents said.
Officials say Farinacci also confessed he was responsible for several other incidents within the last year.
The first fire Farinacci lit was on July 4, 2025, and he told police he started 25 fires near his residence between that day and Aug. 11, 2025, court documents say. Some of these fires, he said, were started with intention to “separate”, “spread thin” and “divide” fire suppression resources. Drapeau said Farinacci has “more than a basic understanding of fire suppression and law enforcement tactics.”
The day of the fire, officials say Farinacci was wearing a shirt he was found wearing in photographs obtained as part of investigations for previous Spokane fires: a green t-shirt that reads “who needs luck when I have charm.”
While thousands remain evacuated, Farinacci prepares for court proceedings
Farinacci’s arraignment was scheduled for Thursday, but his lawyer requested a competency evaluation before he enters a plea. Farinacci’s bond is set for $2 million, with Spokane Superior Court Judge Jeremy Schmidt ruling that Farinacci was a risk to community safety and a flight risk, according to AP.
Many of the tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate their homes still cannot return home. Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said Thursday that it will be weeks before people can safely return to the burned areas.
“We are not going to be downgrading these zones in any large way for many, many more days to come,” Nowels said Wednesday, according to AP. “If we let people back in and we don’t have a high degree of certainty the fire lines will hold, we will put people in danger.”
The day that the Old Trails fire was sparked, Aug. 1, was the same day Spokane moved from a Red Flag warning for fire danger to Particularly Dangerous Situation protocols. During an announcement of the change on TV July 29, Spokane County Fire District 3 Chief Rohrbach said the upgrade from the Red Flag warning to the PDS designation would be the first in Washington’s history.
Investigators said the other two major fires recently sparked in Spokane, the Autumn Lane and Fairview fires, were also human-caused but not necessarily intentionally. No serious deaths or injuries have been reported.
Firefighters have made progress on the fires during cooler weather conditions, AP reports, but high temperatures are forecasted for coming days.