(REUTERS) Spokane County authorities arrested a man on a single charge of first-degree arson in connection with wildfires that have devastated the Spokane area, officials said Monday (August 3).
Aaron Farinacci, 37, was taken into custody after a citizen witness provided details in the investigation leading to his arrest, Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels told a news conference.
The sheriff told reporters that Farinacci was being held on $1 million bond. Farinacci has a criminal record in Arizona, including a conviction for manslaughter, said Nowels.
Wildfires raging on the outskirts of Spokane, Washington, for a third day have destroyed at least 700 buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in and around the state's second-most populous city, officials said on Monday.
The cluster of three blazes ranked as the top firefighting priority in the U.S. as a whole, including the drought-parched Pacific Northwest, where dozens of major wildfires have been burning for weeks, degrading air quality across a wide region.
The Spokane-area fires have scorched more than 8,000 acres (3,200 hectares) since erupting on Saturday (August 1) on the northern fringe of the city, home to about 230,000 residents west of the Rocky Mountain foothills near the Idaho border.
Posted by: Alma Angeles/NET25 News
