A sixth-grade student in Utah is in police custody after he was accused of bringing a gun to school Monday, reportedly claiming he wanted to protect himself in the event of a school shooting.

The 11-year-old is a student at West Kearns Elementary School, in Kearns, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, and brought the .22-caliber handgun to school in his backpack, Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley told NBC News. 

The boy, whose name has not been released because he is a juvenile, indicated that he wanted to defend himself if there was an incident similar to what happened in Newtown, Conn. Last Friday, 20 students, ages 6 and 7, and six school staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School were killed when a gunman burst into the school and opened fire before fatally shooting himself. The gunman had killed his mother earlier that day.

“Obviously that’s not the correct approach,” Horlsey said of the 11-year-old's action. “We teach these kids on a regular basis that they have a responsibility to keep their school safe.” 

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Some witnesses have said they saw the boy brandish the gun on the playground and point it at another child's head. Other reports said the boy verbally threatened another student with the gun. Police have not yet been able to confirm these accounts, Horsley said, noting that it's sometimes difficult to sort out the facts when all the witnesses are children. 

Horsley said two of the boy's classmates complained to a teacher at about 3 p.m. MST, about 45 minutes before the end of the school day. The teacher immediately secured the boy and took him to the principal's office. It was the principal who retrieved the boy's backpack from his classroom and contacted Granite School District police. Police were able to find the weapon and secured the situation in three to five minutes, Horsley said.

The boy also had ammunition, although the gun was not loaded and it was not immediately clear whether the bullets were the appropriate ammunition for the gun, Horsley said. 

The student was charged with one count of possession of a dangerous weapon on school property and three charges of aggravated assault, which is a third-degree felony, involving the alleged waving of the weapon at other students in a threatening manner. 

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Horsley said the student obtained the gun at home from an extended family member who moved out of the family’s house last week.

Previous reports indicated that the student claimed his parents told him to bring the gun to school for protection. Horsley said those claims are not accurate and said the parents have been "very cooperative.”

Horsley said the student is likely to face severe criminal penalties, adding that he was suspended from the school and will not be let back into the traditional school setting ever. “We have a variety of alternative placements for kids who violate school safety policies,” Horsley said. 

No one was injured in the incident, and the school was not placed on lockdown, school administrators said, because the situation was resolved immediately, and, more importantly, they feared startling students. 

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Matt Volz / AP

A man walks his dog past a half-buried statue of a newspaper boy in Helena, Mont., on Friday. The first major winter storm of the year led to blizzard warnings parts of Montana and dumped more than a foot of snow in Helena.

Snow and wind across parts of the western U.S. could create blizzard conditions into the weekend, triggering a number of winter weather advisories across the West.

Meteorologists predict the winter storm, which The Weather Channel dubbed "Brutus," could be worst over northern Montana, where blizzard warnings persist through Saturday morning, according to Weather.com. The winter system comes just days after a nor'easter hit the Northeast, which was still digging out from Superstorm Sandy.

Moisture moving from the Pacific, cold air over the mountain ranges and wind are combining to create potential blizzard conditions, according to Weather.com.

"The clouds have really blossomed across parts of the northern Rockies and northern High Plains, and that’s the area of heavy snow that’s been setting up over the last 24 hours," said meteorologist Carl Parker on The Weather Channel.

Montana will likely see the brunt of this system. The storm already began affecting Bozeman, Mont., where up to 8 inches of snow could fall by Saturday night, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.

As of early Friday, nearly 10 inches of snow had fallen in Great Falls, Mont., the Weather Channel reported.

"The snow is likely to stick around through Saturday morning with additional accumulation expected for eastern Montana and lighter flurries for Billings and areas west," said Brad Carl, a meteorologist for KULR-8, Billing's NBC News affiliate.

AP Photo/Weather Underground

This NOAA satellite image taken Friday at 11 a.m. ET shows a low pressure system over the Rocky Mountains, with snow and cloudy conditions from Montana to Utah.

The National Weather Service is forecasting temperatures to be 10 to 25 degrees below average in parts of the northern high Plains, while sleet and freezing rain is possible over parts of the Upper Midwest.

Wind gusts as high as 85 mph blew into Salt Lake City on Friday, where snow began to fall in the morning, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The area is already seeing crashes and power outages caused by the weather. Through the weekend, mountain areas in Utah could see one to two feet of snow, the newspaper added.

At least 12 to 18 inches of snow is expected across the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado, according to The Weather Channel.

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A man with an ax terrorized residents in a Murray, Utah, neighborhood on Tuesday, according to local news reports.

The 26-year-old man was carrying a hatchet when he allegedly broke into a Murray home and attacked two residents, Salt Lake City's NBC-affiliate KSL reported. Murray is to the south of Salt Lake City. The man then tried to break into three other nearby homes, but was eventually arrested on the roof of a house, according to KSL.

No people were hurt in these incidents.

Murray police Detective Kenny Bass told KSL that the ordeal began when the man stole a vehicle in Salt Lake City and later broke into a home at about 4:30 a.m. MT. The man allegedly attempted to hit the ankles of a sleeping person with the blunt end of his hatchet, KSL reported.

One of the houses the man attacked was that of Minya Alisa, KSL reported. She and her family awoke to a noise at their door.

"You couldn't even make that noise with a fist. It sounded like someone had a big sledge hammer and was trying to bang through the door," she told KSL. "We were so scared, we were freaking out."

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After a one-hour standoff between the man and authorities, police were able to finally take the man into custody, according to KSL.

The man's name has not been released and he was taken to a hospital for unspecified injuries, KSL reported.

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In Portage, Utah, they're everywhere: on children, on dogs, in the food, in basements and along window sills. Residents there and in much of Utah are used to seeing these visitors, known as boxelder bugs, but not in the numbers that this year has produced.

"They've just been awful this fall," Keith Wadman told NBC station KSL-TV. "They're in your food, they're in your house ... they just crawl everywhere."

"They're in the kitchen, they're in the bathroom, they're in the bedroom. They walk right on the dogs even," added Lisa Bryant, one of the few hundred residents of Portage, a town near the Idaho state line.

"Every time the kids come in, we play a little game to see how many they have on them," said Nick Tree, "then we kill 'em."

Tree added that while he constantly vacuums them from his basement, "somehow they creep back in."

Diane Alston, a bug expert at Utah State University, had some advice for terminating the bugs until the winter cold does it for them.

"At my house I like to use an insecticidal soap product and just spray it up on the sides of the house," she told KSL. "That soap will break down the wax covering on their body and dry them out."

The university also has a list of tips for dealing with boxelder bugs, among them: "Avoid squishing adults because they can leave a stain on fabrics and can release a foul odor."

The university suspects this year has been particularly bad because of wet weather last year, a mild winter and then a warm summer.

As you might expect, boxelder bugs are a hot topic not just in Portage but across Utah. KSL reader comments on the story included these:

• One suggested using the dead bugs as garden fertilizer. "Sounds a little grotesque, but hey, maybe it would be a good solution for some folks."
• Deploying chickens to eat live bugs was suggested by a few readers. "We have had a dozen free-range chickens for years and NEVER see one," posted a reader.
• A mix of water and dishwater soap to kill them was endorsed by several. "I used 3 spray bottles full and soon we had snow-shovels full of dead bugs to dump in the garbage," one reader stated.
• "I think I perpetuated the problem by bringing about 20 plus back in the crevices of my car from the Idaho side of Cache valley," lamented another reader. "It's not cool when you're driving and they pop out at you in the car. This is the first year however that they have gotten inside our house."
• And from nearby Rose Canyon, a reader had this to say: "They are bad here!! You can't even tell the color of my house during the day."

Wadman, the Portage resident, did see a silver lining. "The only redeeming quality they have," he said of the bugs, "is that they don't bite."

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A homeless man who survived being trapped four days in a Utah drainage tunnel with a badly broken leg says he’s relieved he made it out alive but regrets “a serious lack of judgment” that got him into his predicament.

“I’ll never do that again,” Daniel Samuelsen, 33, said Sunday from his hospital bed in Salt Lake City, where he was being treated for a compound fracture in his lower right leg and severe dehydration. Doctors at St. Mark’s Hospital have told Samuelsen his fracture is so severe, he could lose his right leg.

Samuelsen told local media he fell into the tunnel, near the mouth of Parleys Canyon in the foothill east of Salt Lake City, after taking a detour on a hike on Wednesday. He and a friend hiked to a segment of pipe that slopes uphill from the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

The pipe led into a series of underground drain tunnels that open out on the other side of the highway.

Samuelsen thought it would be a good idea to explore the “shortcut.” His friend wasn’t convinced and left.

Samuelsen says he’d crossed the drainage pipe before using a rope, but this time there was no rope.

"That was a serious lack of judgment,” Samuelsen said of his decision to continue.

Samuelsen crawled inside the pipe and slipped. Suddenly he was on his back, sliding down, “faster, faster, faster, faster, then boom!" he told the Salt Lake Tribune.

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He wound up about 50 feet below the opening, his right leg smashed and a broken bone protruding from the skin.

Samuelsen, who lives in a homeless shelter and works as an independent taxi driver, said he screamed for help for hours. But though he could hear dozens of bicyclists and walkers coming and going just a few feet overhead on the trail, his pleas were drowned out by the nearby freeway traffic, he told the Tribune.

By Friday, as dehydration, hunger and injury further weakened him, “I was pretty convinced I was going to die,” he said.

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The next day, with hope of rescue fading, Samuelsen found a piece of wood and made a split for his severely fractured leg. He eventually managed to slide down the lower tunnels.

“"I was screaming in fear pretty much the whole way down," he said, according to the Tribune.

TODAY: Tales of survival

At the bottom, he scooted another 100 yards or so to the opening near Tanner Park. He said he spent several hours on the side of the road before finally being able to flag down a motorist for help.

"I was near tears when someone finally stopped. I clasped my hands together and was like 'thank you, thank you,'" Samuelsen said, according to Good Morning America. "I was so happy to see somebody who cared enough about me to stop and realize I needed help."

He says he regrets his bad judgment and urges other would-be explorers not to follow his tracks.

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Updated 12:28 a.m. ET: Wildfires raged in several Western states on Tuesday, destroying dozens of homes and threatening hundreds more. In Idaho, one firefighter was killed by a falling tree.

A fire in central Washington grew rapidly overnight and destroyed more than 60 homes, spurring the state's governor to declare an emergency in two counties, NBC station KING of Seattle reported.

Anne Veseth, a 20-year-old who was in her second season as a firefighter, was killed Sunday as she worked a fire near Orofino, Idaho, the U.S. Forest Service told The Associated Press. Her older brother also is a wild-land firefighter in Idaho, where 12 blazes are burning.

"The Forest Service is devastated by the loss of one of our own," Forest Supervisor Rick Brazell told the AP.

Federal officials investigate Idaho wildfire death

Officials were investigating the death, which came on the same day that another firefighter narrowly escaped a wildfire in southeastern Oregon.

That firefighter was forced to deploy her emergency shelter in an area overrun by wind-whipped flames. She suffered minor burns to a leg and forearm and minor smoke inhalation.

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The rest of her 20-person federal crew made it to a safety zone and was pulled off the fire. The blaze scorched about 653 square miles in remote terrain straddling Oregon and Nevada, where five ranches in the Kings River Valley were evacuated.

A crew in central Washington state also barely outran flames at a wind-driven fire in Kittitas County. The firefighters managed to drive to safety as they got ahead of the Taylor Bridge fire, said Richelle Risdon, a county fire spokeswoman.

That wind-whipped fire, burning in rugged terrain near Cle Elum grew from 2,800 acres to more than 20,000 acres in a matter of hours overnight, KING reported.

As of Tuesday afternoon, it had destroyed more than 60 homes as well as 40 other structures. Another 450 homes were evacuated as winds shifted northeast, blowing toward several pockets of homes and subdivisions.

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire declared a state of emergency in Kittitas and Yakima counties to make available more resources to fight the fire.

With the wind howling late Monday, the fire quickly burned through rugged timber, crowning in trees and glowing across ridge lines. 

Incident commander Rex Reed said the fire was 10 percent contained on Tuesday evening, KING reported.

Firefighters from around the state, as well as 140 state prison inmates, were called in to help regional firefighters and the Department of Natural Resources, KING reported.

Officials said no injuries had been reported so far. Washington Department of Natural Resources spokesman Mark Grassel told The AP that the fire crept within six miles of the city of Ellensburg, though crews were able to stop its advance.

Some property at a chimpanzee sanctuary outside Cle Elum burned but the animals were uninjured, Diana Goodrich of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest told KING.

The Kittitas County fairgrounds has been set up as an emergency shelter for large animals evacuated in the area, which is home to many horse and cattle ranches, the Ellensburg Daily Record reported. Owners and volunteers were rounding up stray horses amid reports that people had opened gates or cut fences to let the animals flee the fire.

Authorities said the blaze started on Monday afternoon by workers at a construction site east of Cle Elum, Reuters reported.

In Utah, a lightning-sparked fire consumed about 34 square miles, threatened a herd of wild horses and shut down the historic Pony Express Road in the state's western desert.

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Meanwhile, crews in Northern California made progress against an aggressive wildfire in Lake County that grew to more than 9 square miles and destroyed three buildings. Officials lifted evacuation orders for the residents of nearly 500 homes late Monday, said Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Berlant told NBC station KCRA in Sacramento on Tuesday that the fire was still advancing, though in a remote area.

"This fire will likely make a number of runs on us today," Berlant told KCRA.

A separate wildfire to the north was threatening about 600 homes, prompting some evacuation orders in the Seneca and Rush Creek communities in Plumas National Forest.

The so-called Wye and Walker fires have charred 7,000 acres and are 30 percent contained, Berlant told KCRA. About 1,100 firefighters were on scene of those fires.

Fires across California have affected some national parks, including Lassen Volcanic National Park and Joshua Tree National Park.

In Lassen Volcanic National Park, which is inortheastern California, a fire that burned 33 square miles of pine forests and thick brush forced the closure of a highway and several trails.

At Joshua Tree, park officials said a fire burned up to 300 acres of rocky, tree-covered hillsides, closing the scenic Keys View Road.

Several other fires in hot and dry Southern California were sparked by lightning, including three burning out of control northeast of Julian. None were threatening any structures.

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A Utah deputy came face to face with a moose in an effort to help free the animal from from an awkward entanglement Sunday, The Denver Post reported.

Sgt. Lane Findlay was called to residential community 40 miles outside Salt Lake City after a moose's antlers got caught up in the metal chains of a backyard swing set.

Worried about his safety, Findlay handed his mobile phone to an onlooker and asked him to shoot video.

"If something happens to me, give this to my wife," he said.

Told it would take state wildlife officials some time to get to the scene, Findlay decided to try to free the moose himself.

The moose had been twisting in an attempt to free itself, so Findlay had to approach cautiously. Its antlers were freed from the chains with the help of a pair of cutters. 

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Once free, the moose walked over to a bucket of water and began drinking and then collapsed on the ground, Findlay told the Post. 

He proceeded to hose the moose down while waiting for wildlife officials to arrive and assess the moose's health.

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Cody Creighton / AP

In this Sunday, July 15, 2012 photo, a person is seen in a goat suit in the Wasatch Mountains on Ben Lomond peak outside of Ogden, Utah.

A mysterious man spotted earlier this month dressed in a goat suit on a Utah mountain has been identified as a Southern California hunter preparing for an archery hunt of mountain goats.

Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources told the Standard-Examiner Monday the elusive man is a 57-year-old hunter from Southern California.

The man, who remains unidentified, was spotted by photographer Coty Creighton on July 15 during a hike on Ben Lomond peak, just north of Ogden in northern Utah.

Creighton told the AP he saw the man through a set of binoculars trailing behind a herd of goats on his hands and knees.

When the man noticed he had been spotted, "he just stopped in his tracks and froze," Creighton told The Associated Press.

'Goat man' spotted in Utah mountains

Following a friend's advice, the man called Douglass on Monday to let him know he was testing out a goat suit to train for an archery hunt of mountain goats in Canada in 2013, the Standard-Examiner reported.

“He gave me details that convinced me it was him,” Douglass, who did not ask the man’s name, told the newspaper. “I’m satisfied that this was a person preparing for a hunt and did it with knowledge and experience.”

The man told Douglass the goat costume was made out of a hooded painter’s suit outfitted with fleece. According to the report, he also told Douglass he has hunted in several foreign countries, including Mongolia.

“He found out about Utah and that it was fairly easy to get close to the goats to (train) to get a clean harvest shot with archery equipment,” Douglass told the Standard-Examiner.

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Coty Creighton / AP file

The "goat man," in white, traverses an incline near Ogden, Utah, on July 15.

The sighting of a man dressed in a goat suit on a Utah mountain is causing concern among state wildlife officials, The Associated Press reported. 

The man, who remains unidentified, was spotted by photographer Coty Creighton on July 15 during a hike on Ben Lomond peak just north of Ogden in northern Utah.

Creighton told the AP he saw the man through a set of binoculars trailing behind a herd of goats on his hands and knees.

When the man noticed he had been spotted, "he just stopped in his tracks and froze," Creighton told the AP.

That's when Creighton began taking photos. The man then sat on a hill for several minutes.

He got back down on his hands and knees and hurried to catch with the rest of the herd.

While officials said what the man is doing is not illegal, they're concerned as the hunting season approaches that he could be mistaken for a goat or attacked by a live goat.

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"They may get agitated. They're territorial. They are, after all, wild animals," Phil Douglass, spokesperson for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources,  told the AP. "This person puts on a goat suit, he changes the game. But as long as he accepts responsibility, it's not illegal."

Goat hunting season begins in September.

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"My very first concern is the person doesn't understand the risks," Douglass told the AP. "Who's to say what could happen."

Officials said they just want to talk to the man and warn him of the dangers. They said he could be a wildlife enthusiast.

"People do some pretty out there things in the name of enjoying wildlife. But I've never had a report like this," Douglass said. 

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Valerie Blair / inciweb.org

Part of the Fontenelle Fire burns behind summer homes in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming.

The nation’s firefighting focus shifted on Tuesday to Wyoming, where hundreds fled over the last two days as crews battle four major wildfires. 

Incident commanders working 45 large wildfires across the U.S. did get some good news as well on Tuesday, when six firefighting C-130 aircraft were again made available.

The aircraft fleet had been grounded for a day to review procedures following the crash of a C-130 that killed four crew members in South Dakota. 

"We have four new wingmen watching over us," Brig. Gen. Tony McMillan, commander of the North Carolina Air National Guard's 145th Airlift Wing, told reporters in confirming the deaths.

The two survivors were seriously injured, he added, without elaborating on their conditions.

In Wyoming, the Oil Creek Fire blew up from 9 square miles to about 31 square miles overnight and forced the evacuation of more than 400 people. 

Evacuations were issued Tuesday morning for some 300 people near the Squirrel Creek Fire southwest of Laramie, the Casper Tribune reported.

And the 138-square-mile Arapaho Fire, which is just 10 percent contained, started advancing quickly Tuesday after burning an undetermined number of structures. Some 300 homes were evacuated in the area.

"The real story on this fire has been the erratic winds, we've had this fire push north, push south, push east and push west at various times," incident spokesman Jim Whittington told reporters Monday.

Wyoming's forest chief noted images like the wall of flame perhaps 400-feet tall coming over a ridge at the Arapaho Fire.

"My folks out in the field with 25 to 30 years of experience are telling me they've never seen anything like this before, as far as fire behavior," Bill Crapser said. 

The Fontenelle Fire, meanwhile, continues burning through forest in Wyoming. Crews on Sunday were able to save several summer homes as the fire raced down a hillside.

The C-130 that crashed Sunday evening was fighting a 6.5-square-mile blaze in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The airmen who died are Lt. Col. Paul Mikeal, Maj. Joseph McCormick, Maj. Ryan David and Senior Master Sgt. Robert Cannon.

The military on Monday put the remaining seven firefighting C-130s on an "operational hold," leaving just 14 federally contracted heavy tankers in use.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Northern Command stated that six of the aircraft would be back in the air after a one-day suspension "to review flying and safety procedures." The seventh, from the same base as the C-130 that crashed, was to return home.

Slideshow: Homes gutted in Colorado fire

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The worst fire season in recent history is taking its toll with large fires burning thousands of acres in Colorado while others consume areas in Montana, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Launch slideshow

President Barack Obama last month signed a bill to lease seven large tanker planes for the nation's aging aerial firefighting fleet, at a cost of $24 million, but the first planes won't be available until mid-August.

C-130 air tankers have crashed on firefighting duty before. In 2002, a privately owned civilian version of an older-model C-130 crashed in California, killing three crew members, the Associated Press noted. An investigation blamed fatigue cracks in the wings.

The crash, in part, prompted a review of the airworthiness of large U.S. air tankers and led ultimately to a greatly reduced fleet of large civilian tanker planes -- from 44 a decade ago to nine today.

Another firefighting plane, the Lockheed P2V, has had some problems in recent months. One crashed in Utah, killing the two pilots, and another one crash-landed in Nevada. 

Mike Ferris, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center, said resources remain adequate as fire managers move equipment and crews from areas with little fire activity. "But if we continue to get new (fire) starts, then things can get a little more complex," he added.

In Colorado, firefighters grappling with the two most destructive wildfires on record there reported progress.

The fires displaced tens of thousands of people and left vast swathes of forest a blackened wasteland in addition to destroying more than 600 homes.

"I don't think we've seen a fire season like this in the history of Colorado," Gov. John Hickenlooper said last week after surveying the Waldo Canyon Fire destruction west of Colorado Springs.

T-shirts sold as fundraiser for Colorado fire victims
Colorado wildlife relief beginning of the long haul

Fewer than 3,000 residents remained under evacuation orders, city officials said, adding that crews were slowly restoring utility services to the affected areas.

Most of the remaining evacuees live in the Mountain Shadows subdivision, upscale homes in the bluffs on Colorado Spring's western edge where the bulk of the homes were lost.

The remains of two people were found last week in a burned-out house in Mountain Shadows, bringing to six the number of people who have died in Colorado wildfires this year. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The 28-square-mile Waldo Canyon Fire was 70 percent contained overall, and the portion within Colorado Springs was fully contained. The fire destroyed nearly 350 homes.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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