Martin Pang, the arsonist who set the deadliest blaze in the Seattle Fire Department’s history, will have to pay nearly $3 million in restitution and other legal costs when he’s released from prison, according to an opinion published Tuesday by the state Court of Appeals.
Pang, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for setting a massive warehouse fire in January 1995 that killed four firefighters in the Chinatown International District, filed a motion in King County Superior Court in August 2015 seeking relief from his legal financial obligations, known as LFOs. In his motion, Pang argued the judge who sentenced him in March 1998 never inquired about his ability to pay restitution to victims’ families or the costs associated with extraditing him back to the U.S. from Brazil, where he had fled after setting the blaze.