Many shot while responding to brushfire Idaho

The information is very preliminary and subject to change. So this is approximately 1:21 p.m. This afternoon we received a report of a fire on the east side of Canfield Mountain. Fire assets responded to the scene at approximately 2:00 p.m. today. It was reported that firefighters arrived on scene. They were shot at. Two people are now deceased. The number of casualties is unknown. There are still civilians coming out of that mountain. There may be civilians who are trapped on the mountain or casualties. So this is a very new situation. There has been active sniper fire. This is an active situation. Multiple agencies, local and federal, are on the scene. And are ready to neutralize this suspect who is currently actively shooting. At public safety personnel. Ready to neutralize this suspect as quickly as possible. And that’s really all we know. So far. We don’t know who the suspects are. We don’t know how many there are. So we know it’s very early in the morning, and I don’t think any questions will be answered tonight? Multiple firefighters in Idaho have been shot and at least two have died. This is happening in Coeur d’Alene in Canfield Mountain Park, which has hiking and biking trails. So it’s still actively conducting rapid sniper fire at the press conference on the border of Washington state and Idaho. I want to bring in Chief Ed Davis Cheese, the police commissioner of Washington, D.C. How is this so far away from this situation? Someone is in the woods nearby and they are far from populated areas. So you have to move resources into the area to respond to a threat and SWAT teams are very well trained. They can operate and they need any type of terrain. So they are not used to working in wooded areas. There was a similar incident in New Hampshire about 20 years ago or the police respond very quickly, but to go after something like this you actually need the power of the Air Force and the ability to move like a ground force. It’s more of a military operation. Then the regular police who are used to SWAT response, tried to bring in additional resources at that point. What does it help in a situation like this if the local sheriff is the local police chief and you’re trying to get additional resources? Well, federal agencies are responding. So they’ll have a lot of resources, the problem is Ed mentioned. It’s very difficult. It’s a heavily wooded area. There’s at least one shooter and again the sheriff didn’t specify if they’re shooting snipers in different directions at the same time, or if it’s one person changing positions and shooting from different positions so that it looks like there’s multiple shooters. There are a lot of unknowns, and I imagine there are some injured people there who can’t be evacuated because of the danger. So it’s a very dynamic scenario where they’re going to use air assets. They’re going to use everything at their disposal to try to find this individual or those responsible for this but unfortunately it can go on for a while and as it gets darker it becomes more challenging and I was listening to the local sheriff earlier who was quite literally saying that right now they’re at the consideration level where they’re trying to re-identify if it’s one shooter, if it’s a change of location, as Chief Ramsey just mentioned, or if it’s multiple shooters firing from different locations. Trying to determine what the situation is and Chief Davis is looking at the shelter in place, while you’re trying to secure a scene. “IS” is trying to keep the scene from spreading into civilian areas and also into residential areas. What’s the conversation typically like at this stage in these types of incidents and I guess where do you start? Well, it’s very similar to what we’ve seen in the past and as Chuck said bringing in air assets for command and control could be a very important part of that. I’ve already seen the helicopter on the scene, but the big thing is trying to close this place down, don’t want this guy to somehow escape from that area and into locations that haven’t been impacted yet.