LOS ANGELES: Authorities said Sunday night they found a “deceased male” with a firearm on Canfield Mountain in the northwestern US state of Idaho, the site of an earlier ambush of firefighters that killed at least two.
“This evening, members of the SWAT team located a deceased male on Canfield Mountain,“ the Kootenai County sheriff’s office said. “A firearm was found nearby.”
It added that a shelter-in-place order “is being lifted,“ but warned that there was still an active wildfire on Canfield Mountain.
At least two people were killed earlier Sunday when firefighters responding to a blaze on the mountainside in Kootenai County -- a popular park and hiking area -- came under gunfire.
This led to an hours-long standoff with the police, and the county enacted a shelter-in-place order.
The attack was carried out with high-powered rifles, Sheriff Robert Norris had said during an earlier news briefing.
Authorities believed the two people who were killed were firemen.
Footage from the TV station and a photo published by NBC showed dense white smoke billowing above a hilly, forested area.
Earlier, local fire chief Pat Riley described himself as “heartbroken” by the attack.
He told local TV station KHQ that no evacuations had been ordered, even though the fire was still burning.
When asked if there was a concern about the fire spreading, he told KHQ: “Yes there is. To what extent, I can’t say, because we can’t get people to where the fire’s at.”
He said he did not know how many casualties there were, but that they were “all fire service personnel.”
Serious gun violence is common across the United States, where many states have few barriers to the purchasing of firearms, despite widespread support for greater gun control.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 189 mass shootings in the United States this year -- defined by the organization as incidents where at least four people are killed or wounded, other than the shooter.
Idaho Governor Brad Little described the attack as a “heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters.”
He said he was “heartbroken” by the attack in a post on Facebook.
