Spokane Wildfire Complex Still Less Than 50% Contained After Week of Destruction

Spokane Wildfire Complex Still Less Than 50% Contained After Week of Destruction

Firefighters are still battling the flames from the Spokane wildfire complex, which consists of the Old Trails, Autumn Lane, and Fairview fires that began on August 1. Presently, the fires are less than 50% contained.

Local media outlet KHQ provided a containment update at 4:45 p.m. Saturday:

Autumn Lane Fire: 5784 acres, 47% containment, 168 structures damaged or destroyed
Fairview Fire: 992 acres, 31% containment, 59 structures damaged or destroyed
Old Trails Fire: 3556 acres, 43% containment, 694 structures damaged or destroyed

More than 900 structures have been destroyed.

1,986 fire personnel from 176 jurisdictions were assisting on fighting the fire, officials said.

Daniel Ramey with the incident management team called the firefighter’s base “a mobile city” because of the resources and space it took to support all of them.

“It’s a small city. You have to have everything people need. You need to have peer support. We have medical, we have food, we have laundry, we have showers,” Ramey said.

Crews continue to make good progress on the Spokane Area Fires. The Autumn Lane fire is now at 37% contained, Old Trails is 23% contained and Fairview is at 31% contained.

Crews are preparing for concerning fire weather this weekend. Officials says they will have more boots on… pic.twitter.com/sfDBvi1Dwt

— Alexandra Coenjaerts KXLY (@alex_coenjaerts) August 7, 2026

While there has been no official statement related to the origins of the Autumn Lane and Fairview fires, the man charged with starting the Old Trails blaze said that he planned the crime for weeks and researched when the weather would be best for igniting it.

The amount of research and forethought into this arson is chilling.

Aaron Farinacci researched the weather to predict a day that would have “high winds, low humidity, sort of high heat” for the Old Trails Fire, Spokane County Detective Michael Drapeau said in a court filing Wednesday.

Farinacci also looked up the work of a well-known serial arsonist and purchased items to make a “time delay device” for igniting a wildfire, using notebook paper, matches, a cigarette and a rubber band, the detective said.

Drapeau said Farinacci told him that “fire is powerful, beautiful, and that things that go through fire experience a kind of rebirth.”

Farinacci picked Aug. 1 to start the fire because he knew there would be strong winds — reaching 50 mph, the detective said.

In the court filing, Drapeau said that Farinacci told investigators he had several possible locations in mind when he left his home on the morning of Aug. 1 to start the fire, but had not determined exactly where it would be.

He eventually chose a spot and “decided to light the fire at this location because he knew ‘it was gonna get bad,'” Drapeau wrote. “By ‘bad’ he meant it would be a large fire, but claimed he did not intend for it to get as large as it did.”

Aaron Farinacci, the Washington wildfire arson suspect, allegedly admitted to planning fires for weeks and has set about 25 in his neighborhood. He faces five charges and is held on $2 million bond. pic.twitter.com/zvwqDj7aNo

— News Now (@NewsNowUS) August 7, 2026

Farinacci also admitted to setting a number of fires in 2025, after spending a decade in prison for killing his father in Arizona.

Drapeau said Farinacci also admitted responsibility for 25 fires near his apartment building in summer 2025. Most were near the Spokane River or the Centennial Trail.

Farinacci admitted to starting the Aubrey White fire that ignited on July 6, 2025, near the Centennial Trail and threatened homes and structures, the court filing said. It led to evacuations and road closures. An investigation determined it was caused by arson, but police didn’t have any suspects at the time.

Farinacci also faces arson charges for the Meenach fire that started on July 8, 2025, the Fort George fire on Aug. 11, 2025, and the Indian Bluff fire on July 24, 2026.

Meanwhile, drone incursions into the fire-impacted areas are hampering containment efforts.

Fire officials are warning that people have flown their drones illegally in the restricted areas around the Spokane fires more than 40 times this week.

Those incursions put a strain a firefighting efforts and are a “huge concern,” according to PIO Daniel Ramey with California Interagency Incident Management Team 7.

“We have to ground all resources when they do that…it’s huge,” said Ramey. “We have fixed wing. We also have rotor wings, so we have helicopters, air tankers trying to assist the ground resources, and it’s a huge.”

26 drone incursions over the Spokane fires in one day. Four flew into the path of firefighting aircraft. If you fly, we land — and the fire keeps running. https://t.co/598i36bBpm pic.twitter.com/6xNdjE42zX

— FF Roger Waters (@ffRogerWaters) August 7, 2026

As firefighters continue their grueling work against the Old Trails, Autumn Lane, and Fairview fires, it’s maddening that human recklessness, both from arson and careless drone flights, compounds the struggles for those battling an already dangerous natural disaster.

Here’s hoping the brave men and women staffing that “mobile city” achieve full containment swiftly, and that justice is equally swift for a man who turned wildfire into a weapon. It will be interesting to learn what started the other two fires, and I hope investigators can make that determination soon.

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