For Tom Greif, coming to terms with the June 29 shooting deaths of two firefighters and the shooting of a third who was seriously injured has been hard. 

“You get hung up on things and your mind won’t move on,” the Coeur d’Alene Fire Department chief said Tuesday. 

Greif sat down with The Press following the latest update from Kootenai County Sheriff Bob Norris on the Canfield Mountain attack. He said that over the past few weeks, he was able to close some of the gaps on things he had questions about. 

“Being able to piece some of that together was super helpful for me,” he said. 

Greif said he finally listened to the radio traffic from the incident, which he had avoided.

“That's not something I needed to do right away, so I stayed away from that,” he said. 

When he did, he heard firefighters warning others of an active shooter and to stay away from the command post. 

“That was a little emotional,” Greif said. 

In the days that followed, he said much of the information on social media failed to accurately portray what happened, and spouses and families were reading things that were false. Greif and other firefighters wanted to get the real story out. 

“That was a big challenge,” Greif said. 

Firefighters have received strong support from their peers, health professionals and the community, Greif said. Some are recovering by being home, others by working. 

“We're trying to navigate through that,” he said. “I know we have a lot of folks struggling right now.” 

“I never imaged that kind of support we got. I just want to say thank you to everybody,” he added.

Greif said people want to know the shooter’s motive.  

“I don’t know that we’ll ever know motive. You can’t get inside someone’s head like that, who’s mentally ill,” he said. “I’m at the point now, I’m done giving him attention. I think our attention needs to go to our folks.” 

He said he doesn’t know every detail of what happened June 29 at Canfield Mountain and doesn't need to, either.

What he does know is the firefighters, as always, acted selflessly that day and he will always miss them and be proud of them. He believes while lives were lost, even more were saved.

"It could have been far worse than it was if not for the courage of those men,” Greif said.