Detectives say Spokane fire suspect confessed to planning ‘powerful, beautiful’ blaze weeks in advance

The man accused of starting Spokane’s devastating Old Trails fire confessed to detectives he planned the blaze two weeks in advance, according to .

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 Road and Euclid Road northeast of Airway Heights.

“He feels fire is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth,” Spokane County Sheriff’s Det. Mike Drapeau wrote . Drapaeu wrote Farinacci made the statements to investigators during an interview following his arrest.

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.

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

While in court for the second time this week on Thursday afternoon, Spokane County Superior Court Judge Jeremy Schmidt increased the suspected arsonist’s 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.

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’s attorney and director of Spokane County Public Defender’s Office, as a partially full courtroom gallery and jury box full of media and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office detectives watched on from the courthouse.

Spokane County Prosecutor Preston McCollam, who sat next to Charbonneau, asked Schmidt to double Farinacci’s bond to $2 million “given the gravity of these charges.”

Just like Farinacci’s 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’s scheduled for a stay hearing Sept. 4 in front of Superior Court Judge Andrew Van Winkle.

Aaron 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)

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’s correctional facility.

The fire began around noon Saturday, northeast of Airway Heights. High winds carried the flames through Riverside State Park and jumped the river into the city, destroying at least 700 homes.

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 “particularly dangerous situation” warning from the National Weather Service for severe fire weather. Farinacci called the conditions that day “ideal,” court records say.

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.

Two days before the start of the Old Trails fire, Farinacci decided he would set it on Saturday, court records say.

He settled on the location near the BNSF Railway train track because he “knew it was gonna get bad.”

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’s friend and started driving home on Euclid.

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.

Child was able to flag down a police officer, who broadcasted the suspect’s description over the radio.

Farinaccci was contacted twice walking down Euclid Road, down Trails Road and then Government Way. The first time, sheriff’s 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.

At the time, Farinacci said he thought to himself he would “feign innocence” 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.

Deputies found in Farinacci’s fanny pack a pack of cigarettes, a butane lighter and a box of Gofire brand waterproof matches. 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. 

The fire investigator was Marc Titus, an employee with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

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.

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, “We saw that guy an hour ago.”

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.

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’s description of a suspect wearing a green shirt with a backpack.

When Titus stopped Farinacci at that point, he identified himself and told Titus he’d just been interviewed by police, according to the affidavit. Titus had seen Farinacci walking away from the fire earlier, the records say.

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.

S-R reporter Garrett Cabeza contributed to this story.