{"id":805560,"date":"2026-08-07T09:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/805560\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T09:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T09:12:10","slug":"detectives-say-spokane-fire-suspect-confessed-to-planning-powerful-beautiful-blaze-weeks-in-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/805560\/","title":{"rendered":"Detectives say Spokane fire suspect confessed to planning ‘powerful, beautiful’ blaze weeks in advance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The man accused of starting Spokane\u2019s devastating Old Trails fire confessed to detectives he planned the blaze two weeks in advance, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement arrested 37-year-old Aaron Farinacci Monday evening on suspicion of first-degree arson, after witnesses reported he was acting suspicious at the scene where the fire started, near Old Trails and Euclid roads northeast of Airway Heights.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe feels fire is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth,\u201d Spokane County sheriff\u2019s Detective Mike Drapeau wrote in court records. Drapeau wrote Farinacci made the statements to investigators during an interview following his arrest.<\/p>\n

He ultimately confessed to starting 25 fires near his apartment complex near the Spokane River, north of the West Central Neighborhood, though detectives corroborated four. One of them was the Aubrey White fire that burned 41 acres on July 6, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knows arson is an easy crime to get away from if you have time,\u201d Drapeau wrote. \u201cAnd he had time.\u201d<\/p>\n

While in court for the second time this week on Thursday afternoon, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jeremy Schmidt increased the suspected arsonist\u2019s bond to $2 million, added four additional counts of first-degree arson in light of the new information and signed off on a competency evaluation.<\/p>\n

Farinacci had a buzz cut and wore light green jail clothing during his virtual appearance from the Spokane County Jail. He sat next to Colin Charbonneau, Farinacci\u2019s attorney and director of the Spokane County Public Defender\u2019s Office, as a partially full courtroom gallery and jury box full of media and Spokane County Sheriff\u2019s Office detectives watched on .<\/p>\n

Spokane County Prosecutor Preston McCollam, who sat next to Charbonneau, asked Schmidt to double Farinacci\u2019s bond to $2 million \u201cgiven the gravity of these charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just like Farinacci\u2019s first court appearance Tuesday, Charbonneau reserved argument on probable cause, bond and release conditions. Charbonneau did ask for a competency evaluation for his client and he\u2019s scheduled for a stay hearing on Sept. 4, when Superior Court Judge Andrew Van Winkle put the case on hold. <\/p>\n


\n\"Aaron
\n<\/a>
\nAaron Farinacci, the 37-year-old accused of setting the fire that razed at least 700 homes in Spokane on Aug. 1, is facing multiple counts of arson. (Washington Dept. of Corrections)<\/p>\n

Farinacci, who has a previous manslaughter conviction in Arizona for killing his father, spent eight years in prison and was released in 2020. He finished the last two years of his probation in Washington, according to the state\u2019s correctional facility.<\/p>\n

The fire began around noon Saturday, northeast of Airway Heights. High winds carried the flames through Riverside State Park , where the fire jumped the river into the city, destroying hundreds of structures.<\/p>\n

Farinacci told detectives after his arrest he had planned the fire two weeks before. He had researched the weather to find a day that would have high winds and high heat and settled on Saturday, a day with a \u201cparticularly dangerous situation\u201d warning from the National Weather Service for severe fire weather. Farinacci called the conditions that day \u201cideal,\u201d court records say.<\/p>\n

Farinacci also researched a well-known arsonist, John Leanord Orr, and purchased items like matches, cigarettes and rubber bands to create a device to start the fire, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Two days before the start of the Old Trails fire, Farinacci decided he would set it on Saturday, court records say.<\/p>\n

He settled on the location near the BNSF Railway train track because he \u201cknew it was gonna get bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Child, 64, told The Spokesman-Review he spotted a man, later identified as Farinacci, in a green shirt and backpack standing on the other side of the train track. He said the man turned around and looked at them as they drove by. Child said he continued driving, picked up his grandson\u2019s friend and started driving home on Euclid.<\/p>\n

He found Farinacci in the same area, about half a mile from his home, where he was spotted about 10 minutes earlier. But this time, Farinacci was bent over the grassy, brushy area. He later told police he set the fire using a timed ignition device made from cigarettes and rubber bands, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Child was able to flag down a police officer, who broadcast the suspect\u2019s description over the radio.<\/p>\n

Farinaccci was contacted twice walking down Euclid Road, down Trails Road and then Government Way. The first time, sheriff\u2019s Sgt. Kevin Mosher noticed a man matching the description of the suspicious person walking more than a mile from the area the man was first seen. He was wearing a green T-shirt, shorts, a fanny pack and backpack. The man said he was coming from the area of Euclid and the railroad tracks.<\/p>\n

At the time, Farinacci said he thought to himself he would \u201cfeign innocence\u201d if confronted by police, according to court records. He also had a plan to pull a knife from his backpack if confronted and force police to shoot him, the records say.<\/p>\n

Deputies found a pack of cigarettes, a butane lighter and a box of Gofire brand waterproof matches in Farinacci\u2019s fanny pack. The box of 25 matches had 14 inside. Deputies released Farinacci to focus on evacuations at that time, until a fire investigator also noticed Farinacci walking down the road and pulled him over.<\/p>\n

The fire investigator was Marc Titus, an employee with the Washington state Department of Natural Resources.<\/p>\n

A Spokesman-Review reporter on West Trails Road and the Centennial Trail observed a man in a green shirt and backpack walking eastbound between 1 and 2 p.m. Saturday.<\/p>\n

A man drove down West Trails Road and stopped next to a Spokane police officer who was parked at the Centennial Trail entrance to block traffic. He told the officer, \u201cWe saw that guy an hour ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fire official, now identified as Titus, stopped to intercept the conversation and asked the officer if he was going to stop the man in the backpack. The police officer indicated he could not leave his post at the time.<\/p>\n

The official drove down the road, flashed the light on top of the truck and made contact with the man before heading back to the fire. Law enforcement sources confirmed to The Spokesman-Review on Monday evening Farinacci matches the paper\u2019s description of a suspect wearing a green shirt with a backpack.<\/p>\n

When Titus stopped Farinacci at that point, he identified himself and told Titus he\u2019d just been interviewed by police, according to the affidavit. Titus had seen Farinacci walking away from the fire earlier, the records say.<\/p>\n

Nearly 100% of fires in the city are human-caused, as are a majority of fires in the county, Spokane Fire Department spokesperson Justin de Ruyter previously told The Spokesman-Review.<\/p>\n

Farinacci is scheduled for an arraignment Friday.<\/p>\n

S-R reporter Garrett Cabeza contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man accused of starting Spokane\u2019s devastating Old Trails fire confessed to detectives he planned the blaze two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-805560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}