A man in Idaho killed two US firefighters in an ambush attack after intentionally starting a brush fire.
According to CNN, the authorities said that two firefighters were fatally shot while another was wounded in a “total ambush” on first responders by a man armed with a rifle.
After intentionally setting fire at Canfield Mountain on Sunday, the gunman opened fire on the fire personnel and responding police.
The ambush that authorities described as a sniper attack lasted for several hours in which officers exchanged fire with the suspect.
Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris, in a news conference, said the authorities traced the gunman through his phone.
Steve Moore, a retired FBI supervisory special agent, revealed that the firefighters at about 2:00 pm reported that they had been “ambushed.”
He told CNN, “For the next 90 minutes … according to the sheriff at Kootenai County, they were responding and engaging the shooter with firearms. And that’s about the time this phone stopped moving around in the woods. And so either the responding officers or agents, whoever it was, they neutralised it.”
The National Guard and local and federal agencies responded to the attack that has left the Coeur d’Alene community in shock.
Kootenai County Commissioner Bruce Mattare expressed, “Thank God it’s over. It’s so tragic. The people we lost were absolutely top-notch professionals. It’s unheard of for something like this to happen in this community. People are still trying to process exactly what happened.”
Furthermore, as the investigation of the attack continued, residents of Coeur d’Alene on Sunday lined up on a highway to honour firefighters who lost their lives in the ambush.
