Associated Press
MERIDIAN, Idaho — Idaho authorities responding to a home invasion Wednesday night shot at the suspect who ran back inside the house minutes before it caught fire, leaving two people injured and at least one person dead.
Police are uncertain if the suspect was still in the house as it burned down.
The Ada County Sheriff’s Office says a resident of the home called about 10:30 p.m. to report a prowler at the home, located in a rural neighborhood near Meridian. The residents did not know the man.
When a sheriff’s deputy and a police officer from the nearby town of Kuna arrived, they saw a man exiting the home with a long gun. The man refused to drop the gun, and the officers shot at him, sheriff’s spokesman Patrick Orr said in a prepared statement.
That’s when the man went inside the home and refused to come out, Orr said.
By 10:45 p.m., the home was on fire. Two of the adults were able to get out, but both were injured. A woman did not escape the flames.
Because authorities didn’t know if the armed man was still inside, Orr said firefighters were limited in the ways they could respond to the blaze. They kept the fire from spreading to nearby property, but the home itself was destroyed.
The wreckage was still too hot Thursday morning for officials to search for bodies.