Martin Pang, who set fire to a Seattle warehouse in 1995 in hopes of collecting an insurance payout — a blaze that killed four firefighters in the worst loss of life in the department’s history — will be released from prison on Thursday.
Pang, now 62, set fire to a frozen-food warehouse owned by his parents in the Chinatown International District on Jan. 5, 1995, in an effort to collect insurance money, prosecutors said. Four Seattle Fire Department firefighters died fighting the blaze: Lt. Walter Kilgore, Lt. Gregory Shoemaker and firefighters Randall Terlicker and James Brown. Soon after the fire, an associate told The Seattle Times and investigators that Pang had discussed burning down the warehouse. Ex-girlfriends and ex-wives described a violent man who used fire as a threat, saying he’d burn down homes or businesses.