The biggest US police manhunt in living memory appeared to end on Tuesday night as Christopher Dorner made a bloody, fiery and apparently final stand in a mountain cabin outside Los Angeles.

Police expected to recover his body from smouldering wreckage that was too hot to immediately enter after a blaze turned the fugitive's wood-panelled refuge into a likely pyre, a dramatic climax to a rampage that transfixed the country.

Hundreds of officers backed by helicopters and military equipment watched the cabin burn, the flames illuminating the night, after a siege that claimed the life of one deputy sheriff and wounded another.

Dorner, 33, a former LAPD officer suspected of murdering three people in his vendetta against California's law enforcers and their families, barricaded himself inside the unoccupied rental cabin after a shootout and chase by vehicle and foot.

Hundreds of rounds were fired in the ensuing siege. The blaze began soon after teargas was fired into and around the cabin. During a lull in shooting a single gunshot from inside the cabin was heard.

"People on the scene are as confident as they can be without seeing the body that it is Dorner inside," LAPD chief Charlie Beck told reporters.

He added: "It is a bittersweet night. This could have ended much better, it could have ended worse. I feel for the family of the deputy who lost his life."

Local media reported that a body had been recovered but Commander Andrew Smith of the LAPD contradicted that and said the dozens of officers on Dorner's hitlist would remain under protection until he was confirmed dead or captured. "That cabin still has not been searched. It's too hot in there. Any reports of a body being found [are] not true."

Cindy Bachman, a spokesperson for San Bernardino county sheriff's department, which was in charge of the scene, said officials believed the suspect was inside but they had yet to enter the cabin because it was too hot.

The relief on the faces of her colleagues told its own story: they appeared convinced the rogue former officer was dead and that they could now sleep easy.

Much of the climax to Dorner's bloody vendetta against the force unfolded live on television, transfixing viewers. A reporter for CBS broadcast the sound of screaming and hundreds of gunshots at the beginning of the siege.

The drama began in the morning when two housekeepers entered a vacation cabin beside a golf course and discovered the fugitive inside. The cabin was reportedly close to the police command post that co-ordinated a massive but fruitless search in the area after Dorner abandoned his pick-up truck there last Thursday, an embarrassing revelation if confirmed.

The former navy reservist tied up the housekeepers, stole their car but crashed it. He then commandeered a purple Nissan.

Fish and wildlife rangers intercepted and chased Dorner. He started shooting and hit their vehicle but caused no injuries. He briefly shook off his pursuers by overtaking two school buses and leaving the highway, said Patrick Foy, a spokesman with the department of fish and wildlife, but other units found him after he again crashed.

He fled on foot to the nearest rental cabin and was swiftly surrounded by reinforcements from the San Bernardino sheriff's department.

In the ensuing battle two deputies were shot. Both were evacuated to Loma Linda University medical centre. One died of his wounds. The other underwent surgery and was expected to survive. Feelings against Dorner ran high. "I hope he burns," said Michael Mitchell, a volunteer at the clinic.

It seemed he soon got his wish. Flames engulfed the cabin, sending plumes of smoke skyward, and there was no more shooting from inside.

The dramatic finale was likely to boost Dorner's status as a heroic outlaw to a small but vocal online community that has cheered his homicidal spree as comeuppance for an allegedly racist and violent police force.

Dorner had a grudge because the force sacked him in 2008 saying he had falsely accused a colleague of kicking a homeless man.

Before his rampage Dorner posted a lengthy online "manifesto" that accused the department of racism and deceit. He insisted he had told the truth about the kicking.

"You're going to see what a whistleblower can do when you take everything from him especially his NAME!!!" he wrote. "You have awoken a sleeping giant."

His revenge allegedly began on 3 February with the murder of Monica Quan, 28, the daughter of a retired police captain, and her fiance Keith Lawrence, 27. They were shot dead in their car.

Four days later an officer, Michael Crain, 34, was killed and two others were wounded.

After Dorner vanished authorities announced a $1m bounty for his capture, California's largest in living memory. LAPD chief Charlie Beck called the vendetta a campaign of domestic terrorism.