A 37-year-old man already charged with igniting the worst wildfire disaster in Spokane County history now faces four additional arson counts, and prosecutors say he admitted to setting 25 fires since 2025.
A judge doubled Aaron Forrest Farinacci's bail to $2 million on Thursday after Spokane County Prosecutor Preston McCollam laid out the expanded case against him. Farinacci, who served roughly a decade in an Arizona prison for killing his own father, stands accused of deliberately planning and igniting the Old Trails Fire that started Aug. 1 and tore through more than 3,200 acres of eastern Washington, destroying approximately 700 homes and other buildings and forcing more than 60,000 residents to flee.
The four new first-degree arson charges stem from fires investigators have linked to Farinacci by name: the Aubrey White, Copper River/Meenach, Fort George, and Indian Bluff fires. Judge Jeremy Schmidt found probable cause on every count and granted the prosecution's bail request without hesitation.
McCollam told the court:
"I am asking the court to increase bail or bond in this amount to $2 million, given the gravity of these charges, given the addition of four separate arson counts."
Judge Schmidt agreed in a single sentence: "The amount, as requested by prosecutor McCollam, is appropriate." Farinacci's original bond had been set at $1 million following his Aug. 3 arrest.
The arraignment itself was delayed Thursday after Farinacci's defense attorney requested a mental competency evaluation to determine whether he is fit to stand trial. The court has not publicly disclosed when that evaluation will take place or how long the delay might last.
Court documents reviewed by Fox News Digital paint a picture of calculated, premeditated destruction, not a momentary lapse. Farinacci allegedly told detectives he spent two weeks planning the Old Trails Fire, monitoring weather apps to identify the day with the highest winds, lowest humidity, and highest heat. Breitbart reported that Farinacci chose Aug. 1 knowing winds would reach 50 mph, and that he admitted he knew "it was gonna get bad."
He didn't just pick the right day. He built the right tool. The arrest affidavit alleges Farinacci constructed a time-delay ignition device from notebook paper, matches, a cigarette, and a rubber band, a design he modeled after devices used by John Leonard Orr, a convicted serial arsonist. The delay mechanism gave Farinacci time to leave the scene before flames erupted.
The devastation that followed was the worst regional disaster in Spokane's history. Roughly 700 structures reduced to rubble. Tens of thousands of families displaced overnight. Entire neighborhoods erased.
And the Old Trails Fire, prosecutors allege, was far from an isolated act. During a 90-minute interrogation following his Aug. 3 arrest, Farinacci initially denied any involvement. He eventually broke. He allegedly confessed not only to the Old Trails blaze but to setting 25 fires across the Spokane area since 2025.
Farinacci's arrest came just two days after the fire started, and it happened because an ordinary citizen paid attention. Paul Child, a 64-year-old resident, noticed a man behaving strangely near the area where the fire would begin, kneeling near grass, acting nervous. Minutes after Child returned home, his daughter spotted smoke rising from the exact spot.
Child told the Associated Press:
"No longer than 10 minutes after I got home, my daughter says, There's a fire. My first words were, That SOB started a fire! It was the exact spot where he was standing."
Child's description led law enforcement to Farinacci. When officers detained him less than a mile from the fire scene, they found waterproof matches, a butane lighter, and cigarettes on his person.
Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels credited the civilian tip directly. "As it happens in so many critical cases, it was citizens who were paying attention to their surroundings, being aware and willing to step up and say something that led to the relatively quick apprehension of Mr. Farinacci," Nowels said.
Beyond the sheer number of fires, the alleged strategy behind them stands out. Court documents indicate Farinacci deliberately ignited simultaneous blazes at other times to distract and thin out emergency response crews, a tactic designed to ensure maximum destruction by splitting firefighting resources across multiple fronts.
Detective Michael Drapeau recounted that Farinacci described fire in almost reverential terms during questioning. "Fire is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth," Farinacci allegedly told the detective, as Breitbart reported.
That philosophy translated into real suffering for real people. Miriam Sim, a 76-year-old who had lived in her home for more than two decades, surveyed the wreckage and told the New York Post simply: "There's nothing to save."
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson called the combined wildfire disaster "likely the worst natural disaster in Spokane history" and said the arson allegation compounded the grief. "It just takes a tragic situation and makes it more heartbreaking to think that much of this damage could have been caused by an individual doing this on purpose," the Washington Examiner reported Ferguson saying.
Farinacci's criminal record predates the arson allegations by more than fifteen years. In 2010, he fatally shot his father in Arizona. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to manslaughter and aggravated assault and served approximately a decade behind bars.
He had also drawn investigators' attention before the Old Trails Fire. AP News reported that Farinacci was questioned in connection with two separate fire investigations in 2025 but was not charged in either case. The 25 fires he allegedly confessed to setting span the period since 2025, raising an obvious question about whether earlier action might have prevented the catastrophe that followed.
Arson cases with this level of alleged premeditation and repeat offending are not as rare as the public might hope. Across the country, arson-related crimes continue to devastate communities, and the pattern of escalation prosecutors describe in Farinacci's case, from smaller fires to a blaze that consumed 3,200 acres, fits a familiar and dangerous trajectory.
Wildfire policy has become an increasingly charged political issue nationwide. Federal lawmakers have debated wildfire response and accountability from multiple angles, but cases like Farinacci's underscore that some of the most destructive fires are not acts of nature at all. They are crimes, and the people who commit them walk among the communities they later burn.
Several critical details remain unresolved. The court has not disclosed a timeline for the mental competency evaluation that delayed Farinacci's arraignment. If he is found competent, he will face at least five first-degree arson charges, and investigators may still be working through the full list of 25 fires he allegedly confessed to setting.
Whether additional charges will follow for fires beyond the five already named is unclear. So is the question of how Farinacci, who was questioned about fires in 2025 without being charged, remained free long enough to plan and execute the most destructive blaze in Spokane's recorded history.
The people of fire-scarred communities deserve answers, and the 60,000 residents who fled their homes on Aug. 1 deserve more than a competency hearing and a delayed arraignment.
A man who allegedly spent two weeks picking the perfect day to burn down a city got a $2 million bail. The 700 families who lost everything got ashes. The system that let him walk free after two prior fire investigations owes those families an explanation.
