Alleged arsonist admits to starting one Spokane wildfire and more than two dozen others since last year, prosecutors say

By Emma Tucker, CNN

The alleged arsonist in the first of three devastating wildfires in Washington state that have been burning over the past several days admitted to igniting the blaze and more than two dozen others since last year, court documents show.

Four of the fires that Aaron Farinacci, 37, confessed to starting have been corroborated by detectives, prosecutors said. He is now charged with a total of five counts of first-degree arson, including one count in connection with the Old Trails Fire, which ignited Saturday.

The stunning development comes as fire crews continue working to contain destructive fires in the Spokane area and are preparing for another bout of strong winds and intense heat through the weekend.

The criminal charges “may be further amended as the full extent of the defendant’s criminal acts becomes known,” prosecutors said.

Farinacci, a Spokane resident, told investigators he planned to commit the crime for weeks and researched what day would be ideal — a high-wind, low humidity forecast that materialized over the weekend — for igniting the fire, according to new documents filed by Spokane County prosecutors.

Farinacci’s confession that he started four different fires means the case qualifies as serial arson, defined by the US Department of Justice as an offense by those who set three or more fires with a long period of time between them.

They include the Aubrey White fire on July 6, 2025, which burned over 1,200 acres; another one less than 5 miles away just two days later; the Equestrian Fire on August 11, 2025; and the Indian Bluff Fire on July 24 of this year, the document said.

“He feels fire is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth,” one detective who interviewed Farinacci wrote in the affidavit.

Farinacci was initially charged with one count of first-degree arson stemming from the Old Trails Fire that, together with two other fires, have in recent days destroyed over 10,000 acres, wiped out hundreds of homes and led to tens of thousands of evacuations. Prosecutors subsequently added four additional first-degree arson charges.

He appeared in court Thursday, during which the judge ordered him to be held on $2 million bond. Farinacci’s defense attorney said he would be filing an order for competency evaluation.

A key witness who drove past a man identified as Farinacci twice shortly before the Old Trails Fire started led law enforcement to identify him as a suspect after seeing smoke billowing from the same spot crossed paths with the man earlier.

“My first response was … ‘That S.O.B. started a fire,’” said Paul Child, who lives less than half a mile from where investigators say the fire started.

He chose a windy day for the arson attack

During his first interview with detectives after being arrested, Farinacci initially denied for roughly the first hour and a half being involved in any fire, court documents said.

But then he described “in detail his planning and execution” of starting the Old Trails Fire, prosecutors say. What was revealed in that interview became the basis for the four new charges.

One detective described him as intelligent, detail oriented and “knowledgeable about fire, winds, and fire warning protocol.”

He also had “extensive knowledge of other arson suspects and their methodology” and had researched serial arsonist John Leonard Orr and purchased items to make a “time delay device” for starting a wildfire, according to the affidavit.

Farinacci told detectives he was dealing with personal struggles after his son was born last year and said he always had marijuana or cigarettes on him “so he would be able to have a legitimate reason to have a lighter and or matches and to assist with an arson alibi,” one detective said.

“He knows arson is an easy crime to get away from if you have time, and he had time,” the detective wrote.

Farinacci began planning what became the first fire on Saturday around two weeks before it started and researched on a weather app what day would have “high winds, low humidity, sort of high heat,” the affidavit said.

He ultimately decided to start a fire on August 1, admitting he “knew for a fact it was going to be windy,” the document said.

If confronted by police, Farinacci’s plan was to pull a knife from his backpack and “try to get the police to shoot him” but later decided to “feign innocence,” the detective wrote.

Police approached him at 3 past fire sites

The detective’s account of Farinacci’s confession included details about his plans for previous fires and how law enforcement approached him on three separate occasions at sites of fires he later admitted to starting, the affidavit said.

During one of those interactions, after a wildfire started on July 8, a Spokane police officer located Farinacci sitting on a rock by the road and Farinacci admitted to having lighters on him to smoke cannabis, the document said.

But during his interview Monday, Farinacci told investigators he was sitting on the rock “due to falling and hurting his tailbone while setting fires” and had cannabis on him as an excuse for having lighters in case law enforcement spoke to him, prosecutors said.

Farinacci showed investigators on a map the sites of four fires, the affidavit says.

The county prosecuting attorney said in the filing Wednesday that state law does not allow “the magnitude of an offense” to be reflected in the charges.

“To say it another way, whether one house was burned or 1,000 houses were burned, our state law counts that as a single act or ‘single unit’ of prosecution,” said prosecuting attorney Preston McCollam.

Witness account led to his arrest

Less than an hour before he saw flames roaring down the road from his home on Saturday afternoon, Child was driving with his grandson in the rural area outside Spokane where he lives to pick up his grandson’s friend, he told CNN.

On their route, they spotted a bald man wearing a backpack and green T-shirt pacing on the side of the road.

At first, Child didn’t give it much thought. But minutes later, on the way back to his home, after picking up his grandson’s friend, they saw the man in the same spot.

This time, Child said the man was bending over and looked like he was doing something in the bushes, facing the tree line on the other side of the railroad tracks, Child said.

“Once he saw us, he just stood up and kind of acted kind of nervous … shuffling back and forth,” Child said.

Shortly after Child returned home, he said, his daughter told him there was a fire and when Child ran outside, he saw a plume of smoke billowing from the same place where he had seen the man.

Child’s daughter called 911 and he flagged down an officer to tell him about the man he saw, which ultimately helped law enforcement identify Farinacci as a suspect.

Within an hour, the officer told Child that deputies had detained a person who matched the description he gave, the grandfather said.

Investigator recognized him from 2025 fire site

By the end of the day on Saturday, Farinacci was released after he denied starting the fire and being in its vicinity, according to court documents.

But at the time, deputies didn’t know the full facts of how the fire occurred, including its origin point, which wasn’t revealed until a state fire investigator looked into the case, the affidavit said.

When the investigator determined the fire’s origin to be the exact spot where Child reported seeing Farinacci kneeling in the grass, detectives used that information and the body-worn camera footage of encounters with Farinacci to build their case.

Farinacci was arrested Monday and was charged with first-degree arson.

It’s not his first time facing felony prosecution. Farinacci previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 12 years in prison after fatally shooting his father. The shooting occurred during an argument about washing dishes in 2010, the Associated Press reported, citing records.

He was also contacted by law enforcement about two other fires, though he wasn’t charged in either case, according to the probable cause affidavit for his arrest.

One investigator’s realization that Farinacci’s distinctive T-shirt was noted in a fire investigation at Riverside State Park last August led to the first charge against him related to the Old Trails Fire, prosecutors say.

During his initial detention Saturday, Farinacci was wearing a fanny pack and a green T-shirt with the words “who needs luck I have charm” written on it, the same t-shirt he was seen in last August when law enforcement found Farinacci “on a park bench seemingly out of breath from possibly running,” the affidavit states.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Matt Friedman, Holly Yan, Graham Hurley and Mary Gilbert contributed to this report.