He Killed His Father in 2010 and Served Eight Years. Prosecutors Say He Just Lit the Most Destructive Wildfire in Washington History.
Three fires burning across Spokane County have consumed more than 10,280 acres, destroyed at least 700 structures with the final tally still climbing, and pushed somewhere between 60,000 and 67,000 people out of their homes. CNN reports it is now the most destructive wildfire event in Washington state history measured by structures lost, surpassing the 2023 Gray Fire and its 240 buildings.
On Monday afternoon, Spokane County deputies pulled over a vehicle and arrested Aaron Forrest Farinacci, 37, of Spokane. He is charged with first-degree arson in connection with the Old Trails Fire, one of the three. He is presumed innocent, and the charge is pending.
What is not pending is the rest of his record. In 2010, in Mesa, Arizona, Farinacci shot and killed his own father during an argument about washing dishes. He pleaded guilty, went to prison, and came home.
- 700+ structures destroyed across the Spokane Complex — the worst structure loss of any wildfire in Washington history — CNN; Spokane County officials, aerial survey pending
- $1,000,000 bond set on a single first-degree arson count, with conditions barring him from possessing lighters, matches or torches — Spokane County Superior Court, August 4, 2026
- February 2024 the month Maricopa County probation officials discharged his supervision — despite a record noting unpaid fines, an uncompleted mental health evaluation and unfinished domestic-violence treatment — Arizona court records via KOMO News
The Spokane Complex is three separate fires. Autumn Lane has burned roughly 5,603 acres. Old Trails has burned roughly 3,621. Fairview has burned roughly 1,056. Together they had scorched more than 10,280 acres and were sitting at zero percent containment as of August 4 and 5, with about 900 firefighters on the lines and Washington National Guard units activated to help hold them.
Gov. Bob Ferguson (D-WA) declared a statewide emergency on August 1 and 2 over drought, heat, wind and extreme wildfire risk, imposing a burn ban that runs through September 30. On August 4 he requested and received a federal emergency declaration from President Trump covering Chelan, Ferry, Okanogan, Spokane, Stevens and Yakima counties plus three tribal nations. Ferguson described what he had seen in Spokane as a “war zone.” No deaths or injuries had been confirmed as of August 5 — the one genuinely good number in the file.
The case did not begin with a task force. It began with a grandfather in a car. On Saturday, August 1, Paul Child was driving with his grandson outside Spokane when he saw a man matching Farinacci’s description pacing and kneeling near a treeline. Minutes later he saw smoke. He called it in to deputies, and that phone call became the spine of the investigation.
Responding officers made contact with a man that same day, questioned him, and let him go without an arrest. According to charging documents reported by KHQ, he was carrying waterproof matches and a butane lighter, and 11 matches were missing from a recently purchased pack. He told investigators he had bought the matches “around Wednesday” for cigarettes. Two days later, after detectives went back through the body-worn camera footage from that first release-without-charge contact, a judge signed a warrant at roughly 3 p.m. on Monday, August 3. Deputies arrested him during a vehicle stop about two hours later.
“Those witnesses don't know the whole thing.”
Aaron Farinacci · to investigators, when told witnesses placed him at the fire's point of origin · per charging documents reported by KHQ
He appeared by video Tuesday, August 4. Judge Tony Hazel set and maintained bond at $1,000,000, with release conditions forbidding him from possessing lighters, matches or torches. Arraignment was scheduled for Thursday, August 6. Spokane County Prosecutor Preston McCollam (R) told the court Farinacci “poses a danger to the community.” Sheriff John Nowels (R), whose office ran the investigation, called it “fantastic and very quick work by everybody involved.”
Spokane County deputies have arrested 37-year-old Aaron Farinacci on a first-degree arson charge in connection with the Old Trails Fire, one of three fires burning in the Spokane Complex.
On October 11, 2010, Farinacci was 21 years old and living in Mesa, Arizona. He and his father, Jeffrey Farinacci, argued about washing dishes. He shot his father and killed him, then shot himself and survived. He was charged with first-degree murder.
In 2012 he pleaded guilty to reduced charges — manslaughter and aggravated assault — and was sentenced to 12 years on the manslaughter count. He served roughly eight and was released in December 2020. None of that is alleged. It is closed, adjudicated Arizona court record.
It is worth stating plainly who was in office for that stretch, because the easy version of this story is wrong. The killing, the plea, the prison term and the release all happened in Arizona under Republican governors — Jan Brewer (R) from 2009 to 2015 and Doug Ducey (R) from 2015 to 2023. The officials pressing the arson charge in Spokane right now are Republicans too. This is not a blue-state release story, and we are not going to pretend it is.
2010 offense, 2012 plea, December 2020 release: Arizona, under Govs. Jan Brewer (R) and Doug Ducey (R).
February 2024 probation discharge: A Maricopa County Superior Court and Adult Probation Department action — a judicial-branch decision, not a governor’s — taken during the term of Gov. Katie Hobbs (D).
August 2026 arson charge: Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels (R) investigating; Prosecutor Preston McCollam (R) charging; $1,000,000 bond.
Court records show the man charged with first-degree arson in the Old Trails Fire pleaded guilty in Arizona to manslaughter for the 2010 shooting death of his father, and was released from prison in December 2020.
Here is the part of the Arizona file that deserves scrutiny. In February 2024, Maricopa County probation officials formally discharged Farinacci from supervision on the aggravated-assault count. The discharge record itself, reported by KOMO News, notes that he had failed to comply with fine and fee conditions, had never completed a court-ordered mental health evaluation, had never completed domestic-violence treatment, and had drawn multiple reprimands from his supervising probation officer. He was released from oversight anyway. That happened during the term of Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), though the decision itself sat with the county court and its probation department rather than with the governor’s office.
Then there is Washington’s own record. The Spokesman-Review reported that investigators had contacted Farinacci twice before, in 2025. Spokane police made contact with him on July 8, 2025, during a fire and arson call involving what were described as “bus-sized” fires near his apartment. No arrest. A Washington Department of Natural Resources fire investigator separately noted that a man matching his description had been contacted regarding an August 11, 2025 fire in the Riverside State Park Equestrian area — a fire that triggered a Level 2 evacuation warning. No arrest there either.
Neither of those releases traces to a named official’s policy choice or a specific statute, and we are not going to invent one. What they represent is an evidentiary and prosecutorial-threshold gap: contact without charges, twice, in the twelve months before the fire that took 700 buildings. Being near a fire is not a crime. Proving who lit it is hard. The honest observation is simply that the system had two earlier looks at this man and both times found it had nothing chargeable.
First-degree arson in Washington is governed by RCW 9A.48.020. It is a class A felony, and on paper a class A felony in Washington carries a maximum of life in prison and a $50,000 fine. That is the number that will appear in most coverage of this case, and it is the number that will mislead most readers.
Statutory maximums are not sentences. Washington sentences felonies through a structured grid built by the state legislature, which has been under Democratic control for years, and a first-degree arson conviction under that framework would in practice mean a fraction of the statutory ceiling — not life, and not anything close to it. That gap between the headline number and the served number is a legislative design choice, and it belongs to the people who wrote the framework. If a jury convicts, the sentence Spokane County actually gets is the one Olympia decided it could impose.
A man has been arrested and charged with first-degree arson in connection with one of three fires burning in Spokane County, Washington, which have destroyed hundreds of structures and forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate.
One more caveat matters for accuracy. Washington’s statewide crime picture does not support a blanket claim that the state is collapsing — reported crime, including murder, declined across every major category in Washington in 2025. The failure worth arguing about here is narrower and more specific: a probation discharge signed off on despite documented noncompliance, and a sentencing framework whose advertised maximum bears little resemblance to what anyone serves.
A man who killed his father in 2010 and served eight years is now charged with lighting the most destructive wildfire in Washington history. Republicans in Arizona convicted and released him; Republicans in Spokane are prosecuting him now. The two accountability questions that survive that timeline are why Maricopa County probation officials cut him loose in February 2024 while his own file listed unfinished treatment and unpaid fines — and why Washington’s advertised maximum sentence for burning down 700 buildings is a number nobody actually serves.
