Coeur D'alene, Jul 1 (AP) 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.

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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.

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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 under fire. 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.

Roley lived with T J Franks Jr for about six months in Sandpoint, Idaho, while working for a tree service, Franks said on Monday. Franks had cameras in his apartment that caught Roley throwing gang signs at them one day, which worried Franks to the point that he called police.

“I didn't know what to really think about it,” Franks said. “I just called the cops and had them talk to him.”

The landlord also called Franks one morning because neighbours reported that Roley's vehicle had been left running for about 12 hours. Franks said Roley was asleep in his room and said he forgot about the vehicle.

Franks said Roley “started acting a little weird” and at one point shaved his long hair off completely.

“We just kind of noticed him starting to decline or kind of go downhill,” he said.

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. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)