Man shot Idaho firefighters who had asked him to move his vehicle, killing 2, sheriff says

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — A man who started a wildfire and then fatally shot two firefighters and wounded another in northern Idaho was a 20-year-old transient who attacked the first responders after they asked him to move his vehicle, a sheriff said Monday.

Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris offered new details about the Sunday confrontation at Canfield Mountain, just north of Coeur d’Alene, a popular recreation area. He said Wess Roley was living out of his vehicle, had once aspired to be a firefighter and had only a handful of minor contacts with area police.

“We have not been able to find a manifesto,” the sheriff said, adding a motive was still unknown.

Norris said families of the victims are “in shock — absolutely. They’re in shock and they’re still processing it.”

Roley had set a fire using flint, and the firefighters who rushed to the scene instead found themselves in an unexpected shootout. They took cover behind fire trucks, but two died and a third was wounded during a barrage of gunfire over several hours.

“There was an interaction with the firefighters,” Norris said. “It has something to do with his vehicle being parked where it was.”

Roley later killed himself, the sheriff said.

He had ties to California and Arizona and was living in Idaho “for the better part of 2024,” Norris said. “But as far as when he got here, why he was here, why he chose this place — I don’t know.”

Two helicopters converged on the area Sunday, armed with snipers ready to take out the suspect if needed, while the FBI used his cellphone data to track him and the sheriff ordered residents to shelter in place. They eventually found Roley dead in the mountains, his firearm beside him.

Dale Roley, who lives about an hour away from Coeur d’Alene, told KXLY-TV that his grandson was an avid hiker who worked for a tree company and was interested in forestry.

Outpouring of support for the victims was swift in Coeur d’Alene, a city of 55,000 residents near the border with Washington.

Hours after the shooting, people gathered along Interstate 90 holding American flags to pay their respects as the two fallen firefighters’ bodies were taken to the medical examiner’s office in Spokane, Washington, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Coeur d’Alene.

Gov. Brad Little ordered U.S. and Idaho state flags to be lowered to half-staff to honor the firefighters until the day after their memorial service.

“All our public safety officers, especially our firefighters, bravely confront danger on a daily basis but we have never seen a heinous act of violence like this on our firefighters before,” he said in a statement. “This is not Idaho. This indescribable loss is felt deeply by all those in the firefighting community and beyond.”

Though the shelter-in-place order was lifted, the sheriff’s office cautioned residents to be prepared because the fire was still burning. Firefighters were still battling the blaze Monday, a task made difficult because it was burning in steep terrain, which limited the use of heavy equipment, the Idaho Department of Lands said in a news release. It had burned about 26 acres (10.5 hectares).

Fire is always a 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.

Associated Press journalists Ed White in Detroit and Martha Bellisle in Seattle contributed to this report.