James Cauthen, a 54-year-old fire chief with Coweta County Fire in Georgia, was shot and killed while helping drivers who hit a deer in Alabama.

A man accused of killing a Georgia fire chief who’d stopped to help a driver who struck a deer has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting, a police official said Tuesday.

A resident in the area opened fire on Battalion Chief Bart Cauthen and the driver as they walked up his driveway for help.

Investigators tell WRBL the suspect, William Randall Franklin, 33, allegedly opened fire on Cauthen and the driver without warning as they approached Franklin's home to seek help.

A Georgia fire chief was shot dead after stopping to help motorists who had hit a deer in Alabama. A man who lived nearby now faces murder charges.

CHAMBERS COUNTY, Ala. -- A man fatally shot a fire battalion chief and wounded the driver of a car that hit a deer in rural Alabama, authorities said.

A fire battalion chief from Georgia was killed in a roadside shooting that injured two other people in Chambers County on Sunday night, the sheriff’s office said. “We lost one of our brothers, leaders, mentor, and family to a senseless tragedy,” the Coweta County Fire Rescue Department posted on Facebook last night.

Authorities say murder charges have been issued for a man accused of fatally shooting a Georgia fire chief in rural Alabama.

We lost one of our brothers, leaders, mentor, and family to a senseless tragedy,” Cauthen’s colleagues wrote in a Facebook post.

A Georgia county fire chief was fatally shot ... a 54-year-old battalion fire chief with Coweta County Fire, the Chambers County Alabama Sheriff's Office confirmed in a news release.

We lost one of our brothers, leaders, mentor, and family to a senseless tragedy,” Cauthen’s colleagues wrote in a Facebook post.

According to an online obituary, a visitation will be held for Coweta County Fire Battalion Chief James Bartholomew "Bart" Cauthen on Monday, Jan. 27, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Unity Baptist Church on Smokey Road in Newnan.