Suspect in Seattle Fire Held in Rio : Crime: Recent Valley resident accused of planning fatal blaze at his parents’ warehouse is arrested in Rio.

Ending an international manhunt, authorities in Brazil have arrested a recent San Fernando Valley resident wanted on murder charges for allegedly arranging a warehouse fire that killed four Seattle firefighters, Seattle police said Friday.

The suspect, Martin Pang, 39, was taken into custody without incident Thursday evening in Rio de Janeiro by officers of the Brazilian federal police and agents of Interpol and the FBI, said Seattle Police Officer Christie-Lynne Bonner.

Pang is accused of arranging a fire at his parents’ Chinese food company warehouse Jan. 5 to collect insurance money and to gain control of the land it occupied, which has been valued at $400,000, authorities have said.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms’ Los Angeles office launched a search for Pang, a recent Valley resident, in January. Pang was last sighted Feb. 12 in a Venice neighborhood.

Pang reportedly fled at the end of February to Brazil, where recent heavy publicity that he might be hiding there was partly responsible for his arrest, authorities said.

“There was a great deal of publicity in Brazil immediately preceding his arrest,” said Marilyn Brenneman, a King County, Wash., prosecutor on Friday. “Mr. Pang’s picture was published in a newspaper there yesterday.”

Police and prosecutors will now move to have Pang extradited to Seattle to stand trial on the murder charges, which stem from the deaths of four firefighters killed when the roof of the burning warehouse collapsed on them, the worst tragedy in the department’s history.

“We expect full cooperation at this point,” Brenneman said of the extradition proceedings with Brazilian officials. “We assume things will go relatively smoothly.”

Bonner said if Brazilian authorities agree to deport Pang on their own authority, he could be back in Seattle in a matter of days. But if an extradition request is needed from the United States, it could be months before Pang returns to Seattle and even longer if Pang decides to fight the proceedings.

“Depending on that decision, we may or may not send our detectives down to try and interview him,” Bonner said.

Brazilian authorities have also said that Pang could be deported quickly, since there is evidence that he lied when he applied for a visa at the Brazilian consulate in Los Angeles on Jan. 30, according to a story in the Seattle Times.

Pang’s attorney, John Henry Browne of Seattle, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Just last Saturday, Pang sent a videotape to a Seattle television station in which, according to news accounts, he proclaimed his innocence and said he would not surrender because he feared going to jail for a crime he did not commit.

But according to court documents filed earlier this month in support of the murder charges, investigators said Pang had told many friends and associates over the past six years that the warehouse would burn down, and several of those interviewed said Pang had asked them to burn it.

The documents describe Pang as worried that the family business was going downhill and eager to get the land for his own use.

According to the documents, Pang also tearfully told a friend, who was later interviewed by Seattle authorities by telephone after the fire, “Nobody was supposed to get hurt, the building was just supposed to burn down.”