At least two firefighters were shot and killed Monday morning while reporting to a blaze outside of Rochester, New York.

Authorities in Webster, NY, east of Rochester, say they are still on the search for the person or persons responsible for the killings, a Christmas Eve tragedy that comes amid a rash of mass shootings and rekindled national debate on gun control.

Local network News10NBC reports Monday morning from Webster that at least four firefighters were shot while responding to a house fire shortly before 6 a.m. By 10 a.m., the station was claiming that two responders were deceased and the fire, still not extinguished, had spread to at least three structures.

“The whole strip’s been evacuated,” Webster resident Michael Damico tells the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “They’re evacuating all of the houses and going through them.”

Damico says he was alerted to the fire down the street from his home after his son spotted a SWAT team on location.

“I’m not aware of anything like this happening in Webster, obviously not a firefighter being fired upon,” Webster Fire Marshal Rob Boutillier adds to the paper.

Sheriff Patrick O’Flynn tells reporters that authorities do not believe the shooter is active anymore, although no suspects have been identified.

News of the tragedy comes barely one week after 20-year-old Adam Lanza opened fires inside of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Lanza executed 26 people inside of the building, mostly children, before committing suicide.

In the wake of the event, anti-gun advocates have called for new legislation to limit the sale of assault rifles. One ban on the retailing of those weapons, proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), has garnered the support of US President Barack Obama. On the other hand, however, gun enthusiasts and Second Amendment supporters have pointed the finger elsewhere.

On Friday, one week to the day after the Newtown massacre, National Rifle Association Vice President Wayne LaPierre demanded that armed patrolman be stationed in every school across the United States. LaPierre made that remark during a press conference in the nation’s capital where he also insisted on a country-wide database of Americans with documented mental illnesses and assistance from Congress in order to actually keep guns in school.

“Before Congress reconvenes, before we engage in any lengthy debate over legislation, regulation or anything else, as soon as our kids return to school after the holiday break, we need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work — and by that I mean armed security,” LaPierre said.

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