Idaho firefighters ambushed

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Two people are dead after firefighters were ambushed by a gunman, or multiple gunmen, while responding to a brush fire in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, officials said.

Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris said during a press briefing that the number of others injured in the attack and ongoing fire is unknown.

The two fatalities are believed to be fire personnel, Norris said.

The incident unfolded at approximately 1:30 p.m. local time after a small but growing brush fire broke out on Canfield Mountain Sunday afternoon.

When fire personnel responded to the blaze about half an hour later, they started getting shot at by an unknown person, or persons, in the woods, officials said.

Norris said that the situation remains active and that authorities are currently taking fire from multiple directions on the mountain.

Civilians are also coming down off the mountain and could be stuck amid the blaze, Norris said.

Law enforcement is investigating whether the fire could have been intentionally set in order to lure first responders to the scene, Kootenai County Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Howard told ABC News.

Landing the chopper to assist on the ground is made more difficult in the mountainous terrain because the shooter is still at large, officials added.

The scene is considered an active shooter situation and a shelter-in-place order has been issued for Canfield Mountain Trailhead and the surrounding area.

The FBI is assisting authorities in Kootenai County, an agency spokesperson told ABC News.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been briefed on the shooting, a DHS official told ABC News.

Man found dead with firearm nearby; shelter-in-place order lifted
A man was found dead on Canfield Mountain, and a firearm was found near the body, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

Though the man was not identified as a shooter, the discovery prompted authorities to lift a shelter-in-place order for those nearby.

The sheriff’s office said members of a SWAT team found the body.

Officials said that although the shelter-in-place order was being lifted, there is still an active wildfire. "Residents in the area are advised to be prepared and ready should further action need to be taken," the sheriff's office said.

Authorities believe there was only one gunman in Idaho attack
A man whose body was found on Canfield Mountain next to a firearm is believed to have acted alone in opening fire at first responders, Sheriff Robert Norris said.

About 300 law enforcement officers, from local to state to federal, responded to the incident, Norris said. They exchanged gunfire with the man believed to be the shooter, who was later found dead with a gun nearby, the sheriff said.

Norris said it was unclear whether the man had shot himself. He could not say what the motive might have been.

Authorities are no longer concerned about a possible second shooter, he said.

"Based on the preliminary information, we believe that was the only shooter up on that mountain at that time," Norris said. "There is no threat to the community at this time."

Cellphone signal led law enforcement to suspected shooter's body
Authorities searching for the shooter noticed a cellphone signal had been active on Canfield Mountain during the time the gunman was there, Sheriff Bob Norris said.

"We had a cell phone activation that was in the same spot since about 3:16 [p.m.], and that it was in the same area," he said at tonight's news conference. "And we honed in on that cellphone, and we saw that there was a male, appeared to be deceased, with a weapon nearby."

Authorities believe the body belongs to the sole shooter in today's violence that killed two firefighters who responded to a brush fire believed to have been set intentionally on the mountain.

Norris said federal authorities pitched in with technology that helped track that cellphone signal.

There are some helicopters that had some really good technology that were able to pinpoint where that cellphone activity was," the sheriff said. "So yeah, there was our federal partners assisting us in this situation."

Law enforcement helicopters were also ready to take out any threat, Norris said.

"We had two helicopters that were up, and we had snipers in them. So, if they had an opportunity to take a shot, then we wanted them to take that shot," he said.

3 firefighters appear to be the only victims of shooting
The three firefighters — two of whom died and one who remains hospitalized — appear to be the only victims of the shooting, Sheriff Bob Norris said.

One of the slain firefighters worked for the Coeur D’Alene Fire Department, and the other was employed by Kootenai County Fire and Rescue, Norris said at a news conference tonight. Their names were not immediately released.

“This was a total ambush. These firefighters did not have a chance,” Norris said.

The third firefighter, also from Coeur D’Alene Fire, is “fighting for his life” but is stable at a hospital, Norris said.

The blaze they responded to, meanwhile, has grown to about 20 acres, he said.

The man who police believe killed two Idaho firefighters responding to a brush fire after starting the flames himself had wanted to pursue a career in the fire service, his grandfather told CNN.

Wess Roley was identified by a law enforcement official as the suspect in the Sunday shooting in Coeur d’Alene. Two firefighters were killed and a third was injured. Roley, who was found dead at the scene and appears to have shot himself, set the brush ablaze with a flint fire starter, authorities said.

Roley’s grandfather, Dale Roley, told CNN his 20-year-old grandson came from a family of arborists and had been working in the tree service industry while trying to figure out his career path.

He wanted to be a fireman – he was doing tree work and he wanted to be a fireman in the forest,” Dale Roley said. “As far as I know, he was actually pursuing it.”

Wess Roley owned a shotgun and a long rifle, his grandfather said. Investigators are confident a shotgun was used in the Sunday attack but have stopped short of ruling out additional firearms.

Dale Roley said he typically spoke with his grandson on a weekly basis, but they hadn’t spoken in the last month because Wess Roley had lost his phone. He said the suspect had loving family and friends, and he vacationed in Hawaii with his mother last year, according to social media posts.

Officials said it appeared Wess Roley was living out of his vehicle, which remains on the scene and has not been inventoried.

“It wasn’t like he was a loner,” Dale Roley told CNN. “We had no reason to suspect that he would be involved in something like this.” He said he was holding out hope that his grandson wasn’t actually the shooter.

Roley previously lived in California, Arizona and Idaho, authorities said. A running website said that he ran track at a high school in Arizona and was a member of the school’s class of 2024.

Two former Arizona classmates of Roley’s painted a picture of a struggling student who occasionally lashed out in anger. He could be friendly at times, they said, but was seclusive from his peers.

A third former classmate described Roley as sometimes “verbally aggressive,” but echoed that he had the means to be friendly and fun.

“He would make us laugh so hard,” the classmate said. They would play with airsoft guns and video games, but sometimes “it was difficult to play with him… you would take him in doses.”

Court documents show that Roley had a tumultuous family life growing up. His mother filed for divorce in September 2015, when her son was 10 years old, and wrote in court documents that her husband had threatened her, pushed her to the ground, and “punched several holes in the walls.”

“He threatened to sit outside my house with a sniper rifle or burn my house down,” she wrote.

A judge granted a protective order preventing Roley’s father from having contact with his wife or son, but later amended the order to remove the son after his father wrote in a court filing that “I am not a danger to my son or anyone else” and that his wife “did not tell the truth in her statement.”

The divorce was granted in November 2015, and Roley’s mother was designated as his “primary residential parent.”

Roley’s stepfather described in a statement confusion and heartbreak among his family members who are still struggling to grapple with Sunday’s tragedy.

“We do not understand why this happened or how this came about,” the statement, released by Tony Cuchiara’s attorney, read. “Our hearts and spirits are broken for the lost and hurting, and for our own loss as well.”

The suspect himself has no criminal history, officials said. However, law enforcement in Kootenai County, Idaho, had minor interactions with him five times.

He has relatives near Coeur d’Alene, but it is unclear what he was doing in the area at the time of the shooting, Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris said.

“We knew that he lived here for the better part of 2024, but as far as when he got here, why he was here, why he chose this place, I don’t know,” Norris said.

TJ Franks, a former roommate of Roley’s, told CNN affiliate KING he was “freaking out really bad” when he learned Roley was involved in the shooting.

Franks and Roley met through the tree service industry and lived together in an apartment in Sandpoint, Idaho, for about six months, until Roley moved out in January, Franks told KING. Roley left the apartment after making “threatening gestures” to a security camera, which led to a 911 call, the KING report said.

Roley’s father told a CNN reporter outside his home in Priest River, Idaho, that he wasn’t close with his son and hadn’t seen him since a family gathering last year.