20 hours ago
Wess Roley, alleged sniper accused of setting Idaho fire before killing two firefighters, ID'd in eerie photo
The sniper who shot dead two firefighters in an ambush in Idaho was identified by officials Monday as 20-year-old Wess Roley — and an eerie photo shows him aiming a sinister glare into the camera.
Roley's body was found near his weapon at the scene of a fire he started Sunday afternoon to lure the unsuspecting smoke-eaters to the scene, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.
He ended up killing two responding firefighters and critically wounding a third, authorities said.
It is unclear whether Roley was eventually killed by a cop's bullet or took his own life, Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris told reporters at a press conference.
7 Wess Roley was identified as the gunman suspected of starting a fire before fatally shooting two firefighters in Idaho.
7 Police respond to a shooting at Canfield Mountain, Idaho.
AP
7 People pay their respects to those killed in a shooting in Idaho.
AP
The chaos began around 2 p.m. on Canfield Mountain, just north of Coeur d'Alene, when smoke started pouring from the woods and first responders rushed to the scene — only to be met by a hail of gunfire coming from the trees.
Firefighters quickly realized they'd been lured into a psychotic trap and desperately called for backup, according to terrifying 911 calls they made from the scene.
'I'm pinned down,' a firefighter said in the frantic call. 'It's clear to me that this fire was set intentionally to draw us in.
7 A procession to honor the firefighters killed in Idaho on Sunday, June 29, 2025.
AP
'We need law enforcement up here immediately,' he said. 'We have another Coeur d'Alene firefighter down. … We've got two unresponsive battalion chiefs down, multiple gunshot wounds, two Coeur d'Alene are down.'
The fire was left to burn as reinforcements battled to root out the unseen gunman, before the gunfire eventually stopped and Roley's body was tracked down in the trees using cellphone information.
7 Smoke from the fire started before firefighters were ambushed.
AP
Neither of the two firefighters killed have been identified yet, while a third firefighter was left 'fighting for his life' after he was struck by a bullet. He is now in stable condition.
A motivation behind the twisted attack remains unclear, but internet sleuths have identified a chilling possible connection to a decades-old incident involving the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department and neo-Nazis.
7 An armored police vehicle leaves an area where multiple firefighters were attacked when responding to a fire on Canfield Mountain.
REUTERS
Sunday's incident happened 24 years to the day after a 2001 burning of an Aryan Nations compound in Hayden Lake — just 7 miles north of Coeur d'Alene — during a fire training operation.
The cabin and its compound had been sold to the department after the Aryan Nations' national leader, Richard Butler, filed for bankruptcy over a settlement involving the shooting of a Native American woman and her son — and the site was torched by the Coeur d'Alene Fire Department during a training exercise.
7 Smoke is seen rising after a fire was started outside Coeur d'Alene in Idaho.
REUTERS
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'I do not think it is a coincidence that on this date in 2001, firefighters in Coeur d'Alene burned down the Aryan Nation founder's compound in a training exercise after he lost the property in a federal bankruptcy sale. The tragic current events are unfolding nearby,' one suspicious sleuth wrote in a post on X on Sunday.
So far no connection has been made between Roley and white supremacy movements.
