HAYDEN, Idaho — Nearly a year after a deadly ambush on Canfield Mountain killed two North Idaho battalion chiefs and injured a fire engineer, one local nonprofit has been working to ensure first responders and their families received the support they needed — and continues that work today.
The Red and Blue Foundation, a North Idaho nonprofit that supports first responders and their families, mobilized within hours of the June 2025 shooting that killed Battalion Chiefs John Morrison and Frank Harwood and seriously injured Fire Engineer Dave Tysdal.
Kassi Allen, the foundation’s vice president, said the volume of calls and donations that poured in after news of the ambush broke was unlike anything the organization had experienced.
“There were times that we were wildly overwhelmed. We had to set up multiple phone numbers. We had multiple people answering the phones,” Allen said.
Donations arrived from as far away as New York and Australia, and Allen said the foundation struggled to keep count.
“Thousands and thousands. Like, we can’t even keep track of how many, came in,” she said.
Allen said the foundation’s role was to make sure that outpouring of support reached the right people at the right time — and that meant saying yes to nearly every request.
“One of the chiefs would call and say, we need X, Y and Z within an hour. And we were like, okay, we said no to nothing,” Allen said.
Funds covered meals for first responders, mental health appointments and practical needs that might otherwise go unaddressed — including supplies for families keeping vigil at the hospital. The foundation even made sure families waiting at the hospital had phone chargers to stay connected.
In the weeks that followed, the foundation organized multiple fundraisers and appeared at pop-up events selling T-shirts and stickers. A partnership with KXLY’s radio group alone raised more than $25,000, and the organization went from hosting roughly two events per year to nearly 30 in the span of 12 months.
Beyond fundraising, the foundation also served as a connector — linking first responder families with other organizations equipped to help, including Tunnels to Towers and the JW Foundation.
Allen said the foundation’s commitment to the community does not pause between emergencies.
“We don’t just work during critical incidents and during tragedies. We have things that pop up almost every single day, and we are supporting the first responders in our community every single day,” she said.
The foundation’s response to the Canfield Mountain ambush drew attention well beyond North Idaho. Allen said neighboring communities are now working to develop similar programs for their own first responders — a development she views as part of the tragedy’s lasting legacy.
“It really put us on the map on a national level … The trust from others that we were going to do the right thing,” Allen said.
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