A man armed with a rifle started a wildfire Sunday and then began shooting at first responders in a northern Idaho mountain community, killing two firefighters and wounding a third during a barrage of gunfire over several hours, authorities said.
A shelter-in-place order was lifted Sunday night after a tactical response team used cell phone data to “hone in” on a wooded area where they found the suspect's body with a firearm nearby as flames rapidly approached, Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said.
Officials did not release his name, nor did they say what kind of gun was found.
“We do believe that the suspect started the fire, and we do believe that it was an ambush and it was intentional,” Norris said at a Sunday night news conference. “These firefighters did not have a chance.”
Sheriff's officials said crews responded to a fire at Canfield Mountain just north of Coeur d’Alene around 1:30 p.m., and gunshots were reported about a half hour later.
Investigators said the gunman acted alone.
“We believe that was the only shooter that was on that mountain at that time,” Norris said.
Three victims were brought to Kootenai Health, said hospital spokesperson Kim Anderson. Two were dead on arrival and the third was being treated for injuries, Anderson said. The wounded firefighter was “fighting for his life” after surgery and was in stable condition, Norris said.
The scene was sheer pandemonium as the brush fire burned and firefighters rushed to the scene only to come under heavy fire.
First responders made urgent calls for help on their radios: “Everybody’s shot up here ... send law enforcement now,” according to one dispatch.
Gov. Brad Little said “multiple” firefighting personnel were attacked.
“This is a heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters,” Little said on X. “I ask all Idahoans to pray for them and their families as we wait to learn more.”
Norris said it appeared the sniper was hiding in the rugged terrain and using a high-powered rifle. He said he instructed deputies to fire back.
Just as the evening press conference was expected to begin, the bodies of the slain firefighters arrived in the nearby city of Spokane, Washington, escorted by a procession of fire and law enforcement vehicles. Firefighters and others saluted as the vehicles passed by.
An alert by the Kootenai County Emergency Management Office asked people to avoid the area around Canfield Mountain Trailhead and Nettleton Gulch Road, about 4 miles (6.5 km) north of downtown Coeur d’Alene.
Though the shelter-in-place order was lifted, the sheriff’s office cautioned residents to be prepared because the fire was still burning.
The FBI responded to the scene with technical teams and tactical support, Deputy Director Dan Bongino said.
The Idaho House Republican Leadership said in a statement: “We are horrified by the murder of two firefighters in Coeur d’Alene, and shocked by such a vicious attack on our first responders. We are praying for them, the injured, their families and their colleagues.”
Coeur d'Alene is a city of 55,000 residents near the border with Washington. Canfield Mountain is a popular hiking and biking area on the city's outskirts, covered with trees and heavy brush and crisscrossed with trails that lead into a national forest.
Fire is always a big concern for the region, said Bruce Deming, whose property abuts the trail system. When he noticed smoke on the ridge Sunday afternoon, he wondered why no firefighting helicopters were responding.
When a friend texted to tell him about the shooting, he realized why he wasn’t seeing aircraft: “Because they’re concerned about being shot at,” he said.
As deputies set up posts nearby, Deming pointed them to a trail that starts near his backdoor and leads directly to the site of the fire.
“I just don’t want to have to wake up in the middle of the night to figure if somebody’s out prowling around my place,” he said.
Associated Press journalists Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
46 Comments
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Cephus
How about using aerial fire power to neutralize the threat on the ground? because the spreading bush fire won't wait till the culprit(s) is or are arrested it will keep on getting larger and larger
Fighto!
Absolutely no one in America is safe from gun crazies - not school kids, tourists, or even emergency workers and fire-fighters.
Such an incredibly dangerous country. One would be mad to visit.
Rest in peace to the innocent and brave fire-fighters. Hopefully the coward(s) who did this are taken out ASAP.
Some dude
How long before this gets blamed on literally anything except the USA's insane culture of gun worship? "Quick, blame immigrants, the left, non white people, Soros, Islam, anything!"
The much cooler lesser panda.
How did the fire start, I wonder. Deliberately, in order to lure the responders? To conceal evidence of another crime? Accidentally, or naturally, but the shooter has something to hide? Stay tuned, I guess.
Peter Neil
Idaho is very strange place.
deanzaZZR
Terrible. Be better, America.
Jimizo
Nah.
Look at the chances of being killed by gunfire in the US. Too high but still very low.
Wonderful place in many ways.
It is insane.
Sven Asai
He owns the land and defends it from any intruders with a legally bought weapon, that would also be a possible and legal scenario.
Tokyo Guy
Just for the statisticians: that place is something like 99% white and 95% evangelical christian.
So if you're going to pin it on anything else, your cherry picking game will have to be really on point.
Jimizo
Best not jump to partisan conclusions here.
Too many have made idiots out of themselves by doing this.
deanzaZZR
We will be in the Boise area in August for a family gathering. It's quite nice to visit and there is plenty of nature to explore if you have some wheels.
deanzaZZR
@TG Boise is nothing like that with the influx of Californians and Boise State University being the "liberal hotbed" for the state.
There certainly are many whack jobs in the hinterlands.
TokyoLiving
In that country, you never know when or where the next crazy, sick man with an assault rifle will appear every day..
That's why more and more people in the US want to abandon that failed democracy and escape to a safer, more free country with better human rights, like Europe, Australia, New Zealand, or Asia, especially my safe, clean, developed, and gun-free JAPAN..
masugomi
gUnS aRe BaD
How about proposing a viable solution instead of complaining about the nutjobs?
Xamo
The shooter has been located and killed, thank goodness.
Jimizo
?
Keyboard problem?
Some dude
How about proposing a viable solution instead of complaining about the nutjobs?
Haven't multiple democrat administrations tried to do this very thing, i.e. propose a viable solution, only to see it shot down (so to speak) by republicans who are in lockstep with the yeehaw-shooting-into-the-air lobby?
Fighto!
Only someone sick in the head would support this idea.
So, the murderer went out a coward, just as he lived his life. Loser.
The much cooler lesser panda.
The responders were likely still on public land as the shooting started soon after they'd arrived. Anyway, they'd have something like implied consent which means they can enter private property in the interests of public safety. And even if the rifle was legal in every way, you can't use it to kill people without proper justification.
Dave Thomas
In Japan we still face the odd killer with a grudge and a kitchen knife now and then. They prefer women, old folks, and kids to take out their frustrations. Lately the car has become a popular weapon and occasionally a suicide will kill someone innocent as they land on them from the mansion balcony.
Life remains an unknown risk and sudden death can catch you when you least expect it. It this case, a trap was laid and sprung against first responders who already risk their lives daily. The legal access to weapons of all descriptions might be a "right" but remains a terrible bane to anyone walking the wild west of the USA. I'll take my chances on the subway in Japan any day of the week.
wallace
Idaho Hillbilly and SURVIVALIST PREPPER NUTTER with a grudge against authority.
Express sister
Right wingers here will, instinctively, defend the murderer. They may dislike the death, but they adore the cause of it.
Wasabi
Beside the current president, the USA has very serious problem. Maybe trump should make inside america great now?
MilesTeg
You've never heard of gun control?
Bob Fosse
You can’t identify a nut job until it’s too late. Guaranteed the weapons were legally purchased.
Far easier and more sensible to introduce harsher gun control laws than blaming mental health issues. Every country on Earth has mental health issues.
But the gun industry is worth far too much and there are far too many firearms in the country already. It’s not about the second amendment, that’s a bunch of bs pedaled to the gullible just to make more $$$.
Sadly there isn’t a viable solution, too late for that.
ohara
The US has always been full of guns. It is only in the last 4 decades or so that US society has been degenerating to the point where mass school shootings etc are occurring.
Before that such things were literally unheard of.
Something changed.
wallace
Guns 'R' US.
wallace
6 September 1949, East Camden, New Jersey. The first recorded mass shooting in America. In less than twelve minutes, twenty-eight-year-old Howard Barton Unruh shot thirteen people dead on his block on River Road.
Bob Fosse
There are an estimated 5 times more guns in the U.S. now than in the 1970s. That changed.
Do you really think mass shootings were ‘literally unheard of’ in the 1970’s or before? If so you are starting on the wrong foot before sharing your ideas about ‘something changed’.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Yes we have more religious nutters and sovereign citizens then in the past.
ohara
Yes we have more religious nutters and sovereign citizens then in the past.
You are just using your pet ideology and raison detre to attempt (unsuccessfully) to score some points. Not helpful.
Some dude
The US has always been full of guns. It is only in the last 4 decades or so that US society has been degenerating to the point where mass school shootings etc are occurring.
Before that such things were literally unheard of.
Something changed
Google says the big jump was the 80s and 90s. Those decades saw both republican and democrat administrations, so if you're trying to clumsily insinuate that the uptick in shootings is a simple matter of who was president at the time, that's not going to work.
Here's an interesting hint:
The NRA's focus shifted in the late 1970s, specifically at the 1977 annual convention in Cincinnati, known as the Revolt at Cincinnati. This change saw the organization move away from its previous emphasis on "hunting, conservation, and marksmanship" towards a more politically focused approach centered on the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.
Express sister
Ban ownership of guns except by those who are explicitly permitted for a definite reason - and one that is not "I want to kill people"
Wasabi
Why do you need to ask when the solution is obvious?
Prohibits any position of weapons.
If you are not a police officer or a military member, you do NOT need any weapon, ever!
wallace
Out of all the G7 nations, the US has the highest gun homicide rate.
Express sister
There are few, and very few, legitimate reasons to possess a firearm without being a soldier or a police officer. A farmer? Maybe.
But if you just feel like it?
No.
Express sister
Any of our gun-loving GOPs want to let their voices be heard?
bass4funk
I could live in nations that use knives, just as bad, this is why I choose to live in the countryside in Texas to get away from the crazy protesting fools and all that other political nonsense.
Oh, please, not even remotely close, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico by far are way more dangerous than the U.S.
I agree
Bob Fosse
This is simply not true.
See above.
wallace
Fukuoka is low crime.
Some dude
Oh, please, not even remotely close, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico by far are way more dangerous than the U.S.
Unless they also have an immigration "service" which behaves like ICE, I question the overall veracity of your claim.
The figures showing the economic impact on travel to the US are really quite eye-opening. Tourism is heading in one direction, and that's down. Hard.
Plus, even if there is statistical merit to your claims about other countries being more dangerous than the US, you're forgetting to factor in the issue of perception. The US is now seen as a dangerous place to go to, especially if you're the wrong shade for ICE. And that can be pinned squarely on the current administration, who let ICE run riot through the country. (Yeah, I know, you'll blame it on Biden, but I'm talking about people who can actually think by themselves).
wallace
Many countries are more dangerous than the US but none of them are G7 or 1st world ones.
Express sister
Weird, I thought you chose to live in Fukuoka, where guns are illegal.
ulysses
Sir, do you use teleportation????
You seem to be in Tokyo, Fukuoka and Texas at the same time!!!
Express sister
Tick tocks bass. What's up? Where do you live?
ulysses
Fantasy Island!!!