Two US firefighters have been fatally shot and a third wounded after a man intentionally started a fire and began shooting at first responders in a “total ambush” which lasted several hours, authorities said.
The gunman, who investigators said acted alone, began shooting after crews responded to a fire at Canfield Mountain, just north of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Sunday afternoon.
Law enforcement officers and firefighters took sniper fire during the incident and a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team later “located a deceased male” close to where the attack took place.
The fire grew to 20 acres after it was first reported and continued to blaze into Sunday night, Norris added.
“We do believe that the suspect started the fire,” Norris told a late night news conference.
“This was a total ambush. These firefighters did not have a chance.
“We did lose a Coeur d’Alene firefighter, and we did lose a firefighter from the Kootenai County Fire and Rescue.”
A third was “fighting for his life, but is in stable condition”, he said.
Firefighters received the first report of a fire in the mountainside community at around 13:21 PST (20:21 GMT) and reports that they were being shot at emerged about 40 minutes later, Norris said.
More than 300 law enforcement officers from the city, county, state and federal levels responded to the scene of the shooting, including two helicopters with snipers on board.
Video showed smoke billowing from heavily-wooded hillsides.
Norris said the shooter used a high-powered sporting rifle to fire rapidly at first responders, with officers initially unsure of the number of perpetrators involved.
After an hours-long barrage of gunfire, the suspect was found using mobile phone location information. It was unclear whether the suspect had killed himself or been hit by an officer, Norris said.
Authorities would not provide more details on weapons recovered, but said that officers would likely find more guns at the scene on Monday, once the fire was extinguished.
The motive for the shooting was not known and Norris did not provide any details on the suspect.
The two firefighters killed and the third wounded have not been identified.
A shelter-in-place notice – which alerts people to stay inside their properties or in their current locations during an emergency, rather than evacuating to a different area – was lifted some seven hours later.
Canfield Mountain is an area popular with hikers about 260 miles (420 km) east of Seattle.
ReutersNorris said that a preliminary investigation had determined that there was only one gunman, after it was earlier thought that there could have been as many as four.
He said the gunman appeared to have run while shooting and may have stashed weapons in different places.
Helicopters with heat-seeking technology flew over the area in an attempt to pinpoint the suspect, but teams experienced difficulty because of smoke from the wildfire which was still burning, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
Norris added that investigators had to search the scene quickly, due to the encroaching fire, and that the information they had was still “very, very preliminary”.
“A fire was rapidly approaching that body. And we had to scoop up that body and transport that body to another location,” he said.
Officials have appealed to the public to stay away and not to fly drones over the site.
A firefighters’ union boss confirmed two of its members had been killed in the attack.
Edward Kelly, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) union, posted on X: “While responding to a fire earlier today in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, IAFF members were ambushed in a heinous act of violence.
Local fire chief Pat Riley told TV station KHQ he was “heartbroken” by the attack.
The case was a big shock to those living in Coeur d’Alene, a city of around 56,000 people that is near the border with Washington state.
Coeur d’Alene resident Linda Tiger, 80, told the BBC she was shocked by the shooting.
“This has never happened here,” said Mrs Tiger, who has lived in the city for nearly 30 years.
“But it goes to show that that no-one is safe from this kind of mental sadness.”