WEBSTER, N.Y. -- Four volunteer firefighters responding to an intense pre-dawn house fire were shot Monday morning, two fatally, leading to a shootout between a suspect and police in suburban Rochester, N.Y., police said.
"One or more shooters" fired at the firefighters when they arrived shortly after 5:30 a.m. at the blaze near the Lake Ontario shore, just east of Rochester, Town of Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said.
The first Webster police officer who arrived exchanged gunfire with a shooter, Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said. Police would not give details on the whereabouts of a suspect, with O'Flynn saying only there was no active shooter at the scene later Monday morning.
The two wounded firefighters were in critical condition at a Rochester hospital, O'Flynn said. A spokeswoman at Strong Memorial Hospital said two Webster firefighters were being treated for gunshot wounds and were in "guarded" condition.
The West Webster Fire District early Monday received a report of a car and house on fire on Lake Road, on a narrow peninsula where Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario, O'Flynn said.
The fire started in one home and spread to two others and a car, officials said. The fire appeared from a distance as a pulsating ball of flame glowing against the early morning sky, flames licking into treetops and reflecting on the water, with huge bursts of smoke billowing away in a brisk wind.
The gunfire initially kept firefighters from battling the blazes, but they were doing so late Monday morning, officials said.
Monday's shooting and fires occurred in a neighborhood of seasonal and year-round homes set close together across the road from the lakeshore. The area is popular with recreational boaters but is normally quiet this time of year, O'Flynn said.
"The whole strip's been evacuated," resident Michael Damico told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. "They're evacuating all of the houses and going through them."
O'Flynn lamented the violence, which comes on the heels of other shootings including the massacre of 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
"It's sad to see that that this is becoming more commonplace in communities across the nation," O'Flynn said.
Webster, a middle-class, lakeside suburb, now is the scene of violence linked to house fires for two Decembers in a row.
Last Dec. 7, authorities say, a 15-year-old boy doused his home with gasoline and set it ablaze, killing his father and two brothers, 16 and 12. His mother and 13-year-old sister escaped with injuries. He is being prosecuted as an adult.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed
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