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Three more young men made a first court appearance in Douglas County Superior Court last week after the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, working with the U.S. Marshals Service, arrested them on warrants tied to the Chelan Hills Fire — the July 4 blaze that killed an Orondo man, injured six firefighters and destroyed roughly 19 to 20 homes in the county’s northwest corner.
Valentin Tabunscic, 18, of Tacoma; Mark Okhrimchik, 19, of University Place; and Julian Mikityuk, 19, of Pacific, were taken into custody on Thursday, Sept. 17, according to the Sheriff’s Office and multiple news outlets covering the arrests. All three were booked on first-degree manslaughter, first-degree arson, first-degree malicious mischief and six counts of third-degree assault — the same charges filed earlier against Michael Yakimov, 18, of Kent, who was arrested Sept. 2 and was the first suspect taken into custody in the case.
That brings the total number of people in custody to four. Investigators have said at least two more suspects remain outstanding, and a $30,000 reward — backed by the Sheriff’s Office and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — is still on offer for information leading to arrest and conviction.
All four men in custody are being held on $1 million bail apiece at the Chelan County Regional Justice Center. Investigators allege the fire started when fireworks, including what one report described as a Roman candle-style firework, were fired out of a moving vehicle in the Chelan Hills area northwest of Orondo on the afternoon of July 4 — timing that fell squarely inside Douglas County’s summer burn ban.
The fire that resulted burned about 15.6 square miles, or roughly 10,000 acres, of grass and timber land in the hills above the Columbia River. Sheriff’s officials say it killed 69-year-old Robert Lister of Orondo, whose vehicle went off the road as he tried to evacuate; his remains were later found inside it. Six firefighters were injured battling the blaze, and county officials have put the property toll at more than 100 structures, including 19 to 20 homes, most of them in the rural stretch between Orondo and the Waterville Plateau’s western edge.
For a county of roughly 45,000 people where wildland fire has repeatedly threatened orchard land, wind-farm infrastructure and the small towns strung along U.S. 2 and U.S. 97, the case has drawn attention well beyond Douglas County’s borders — but the losses landed at home. Orondo lost a longtime resident. Families on the plateau lost houses, barns, and outbuildings built up over generations of orchard work. The Sheriff’s Office, which normally handles a caseload weighted toward rural traffic and property crime, has spent more than two months running a multi-state fugitive investigation alongside the Marshals Service and ATF.
Okhrimchik had a scheduled Superior Court hearing the Friday after his arrest; case setting for the other two defendants was expected to follow through routine court process in the weeks ahead. None of the four men has entered a plea in open reporting so far, and the Sheriff’s Office has not released the names of the outstanding suspects, saying only that the search continues.
The arrests came exactly as the county’s own fire danger was easing: Sheriff Darren Weekly lifted Stage 1 fire restrictions for unincorporated Douglas County on Sept. 17 — the same day as the latest arrests — after reviewing current fuel conditions, weather and forecasts. That local lift does not override the statewide burn ban Gov. Bob Ferguson’s office has kept in place through Sept. 30 under Washington’s wildfire emergency proclamation, meaning outdoor burning restrictions technically remain active even as county officials judge the immediate wildfire threat to have receded for the season.
The Chelan Hills Fire is one of the deadliest and most destructive in recent Douglas County history, and the criminal case is likely to be the county’s highest-profile prosecution for years to come. Superior Court proceedings will determine what, if anything, jurors are asked to decide about how a Fourth of July drive through the hills above Orondo turned into a fatal, multimillion-dollar disaster for the county’s rural west side.
Sources: KPQ, KATU, Douglas County, KOMO News
