Climate Change Wildfires Are Bad Enough. Do We Also Need Psychopaths Setting Wildfires?

Nothing we can physically do, as Americans or as a species, is going to prevent the yearly cycle of wildfires and choking smoke at this point, thanks to our own actions. Carcinogenic air is just the latest way we're paying for the carbon and CO2 that both industry and private commerce has loaded into the atmosphere over the course of the last century, and it is now simply a facet of daily existence. There's a reason we were writing about the overwhelmingly unhealthy exposure of wildfire smoke in 2024, and in 2025 –there is now no escaping what we dubbed the annual "smoke season." But damn it if people don't find a way to make things that much worse for everyone, by say, intentionally lighting a huge wildfire that then covers half the continent in smoke. Nice going!

The latest mega-fire in question is the Old Trails Fire, which started outside Spokane, Washington, and is now suspected to have been a case of arson. The man who has been arrested and charged with the crime of intentionally lighting it? Would you believe that the guy is apparently a convicted killer who went to prison for murdering his father over an argument involving dishes in 2010? Who would have thought that such a man could possibly find a way to exceed the negative impact he's already had on the world? We've got a true achievement in depravity here. Aspiring psychopaths are no doubt taking notes.

The man in question is Aaron F. Farinacci, a Spokane resident who is now charged with first-degree arson, seemingly intent on burning down his city, presumably including his own home. He's due in court today, being held on a $1 million bond, after police were initially alerted by a concerned local who had reported a "nervous-looking man bent by the side of the road near some grass." It's unclear if this incident was before or after what would become the Old Trails Fire had been set, but police at the time ended up releasing Farinacci after initial questioning, despite noting that he was carrying matches and a lighter. He was eventually arrested and charged on Monday. Somehow, we don't expect the police will be all that enthusiastic to clarify whether or not they released the man before he may have started the blaze.

Some 16 years earlier, meanwhile, a then 21-year-old Farinacci went to prison after an argument about washing dishes somehow elevated to the point of homicide. The clearly disturbed young man shot and killed his father in their Mesa, Arizona home, reportedly pointed the gun at his mother as well, and ultimately also shot himself but survived. He was charged with murder but ended up pleading guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and aggravated assault in 2012, and spent the next eight years in prison before being released in 2020–one wonders if the crisis of COVID-19 in the prison system may have played a role there. And six years later, here's the same individual, now charged with intentionally lighting a fire that has destroyed at least 700 buildings and forced roughly 67,000 people to evacuate.

Those numbers, sadly, are only going to keep climbing. The Old Trails Fire, and two other, smaller fires in its vicinity that may or may not be related, were reported as 0% contained as of Tuesday morning, and have burned an area of at least 16 square miles already, belching toxic smoke that has drifted throughout the state and beyond. Residents in outlying Spokane areas have already returned to find the smoking debris of where their houses once stood. And conditions for firefighters are becoming increasingly intolerable–another challenge of climate change–as Wednesday is forecasted to have high winds spreading the fire and temperatures ranging into the 90s. If you've ever asked yourself why these wildfires are so difficult to contain or extinguish, perhaps spend a few minutes imagining what it's like to work outside in 90-plus degree weather, next to a rapidly advancing fire, while wearing 70 pounds of gear.

"Hundreds of people have completely lost their homes and farms, and many are prohibited from returning to their homes or neighborhoods as crews continue to extinguish smoldering embers," said a statement from Washington's congressional delegation, in a request for President Donald Trump to approve an expedited emergency declaration. This, he thankfully did–something that can no longer be taken for granted when Trump and his administration have taken to frequently denying aid requests from blue states without explanation. Countdown to Trump declaring the arsonist, if convicted, a liberal domestic terrorist …

As for the rest of the homicidal Americans reading this news and anxiously flicking a lighter–could you not? We're all probably going to burn eventually anyway; there's no need to hurry any of this along. Let the wildfires claim us naturally, as God and our industrial overlords intended.