A grass fire on a military base in Alberta, Canada, on Saturday was whipped by the wind at such remarkable speed, more than half a mile a minute, that it overwhelmed soldiers in a combat exercise, killing four of them and injuring 39 others, the Canadian authorities said Sunday. At least 19 were in critical condition.
The fatal accident occurred at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright, one of the country’s largest army bases, and involved troops training with live ammunition in preparation for deployment to Latvia.
“What followed was one of the worst tragedies for the forces on Canadian soil in peacetime,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters in Ottawa on Sunday.
Base control officers were aware of the fire well in advance of its surge, Maj. Gen. Wade Rutland said at a news conference in Edmonton, Alberta, later in the day. But they believed it to be safely contained before the wind picked up sharply.
“Within 30 seconds to a minute, they saw no fire, and then there was a fire right on top of them,” he said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but General Rutland said that an array of ammunition and explosive weapons were being used at the time that fierce winds spread the blaze in the direction of a range hosting several training exercises.
According to Environment Canada, a cold front moving through Wainwright brought winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour just before 4 p.m., when the fire was reported.
General Rutland rejected reports that an oil or gas explosion had caused the fire, or that there was some kind of “outside interference.”
The soldiers were conducting combat training with live munitions at the time, including work on a hand grenade range and practicing a 10-solider response to a simulated attack, General Rutland said. The soldiers, he added, were training to be deployed to Latvia in the spring, where Canada has led a NATO mission since 2017, consisting of 2,000 members.
Most of the injured soldiers were from Edmonton, as well as one of the deceased, Sgt. Morgan Wong. Two others who died, Pvt. Aidan Goulding and Pvt. Hayden Lykkemark, were from British Columbia and the last, Pvt. Shaun Farrell, was from Saskatchewan.
Local authorities said on Saturday that strong winds appeared to fan the flames, and that they “crossed the base fence” before crews tamed the spread around 11 p.m., about seven hours after the first calls came in.
Hospitals in the province on Saturday activated a Code Orange, or an alert for mass casualty events that mobilizes health resources and bed space for triaging large numbers of patients. Twenty-two ground ambulances and eight air ambulances were dispatched, and patients were sent to four medical facilities, Jennifer Vanderlaan, a spokeswoman at Acute Care Alberta, a provincial health agency, said in a statement.
Victims of the fire are being treated at hospitals throughout Alberta, with most of them in Edmonton. The city, Alberta’s capital, opened a blood drive on Sunday.
“We know that the road ahead, especially for those who are suffering from severe burns, will be long, requiring weeks and months of intense and specialized care,” said Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, at the news conference.
Federal and provincial government buildings lowered the Canadian flag to half-staff on Sunday to honor the victims.
C.F.B. Wainwright hosts at least two large-scale live-fire training exercises every October, according to the Canadian Army. The base is primarily used to train soldiers by simulating combat environments.
The base employs around 300 civilian workers and sits in a rural area just south of Wainwright, which has a population of about 6,000.
Unlike other small towns in rural Alberta, populated primarily by locals, Canadians from across the country pass through Wainwright because of the base, said Bruce Pugh, the town’s mayor, making the community much more diverse.
The military is woven in the fabric of the community, he added.
The fire comes just before a vote on Monday in which the oil-rich Western province will ask its citizens whether they want to remain part of Canada or hold a second, binding referendum on separating. An early-voting station in Wainwright stayed open longer than scheduled on Saturday because of the fire, according to Elections Alberta.
Cathy Keane, who is running for mayor in Oro-Medonte, a town in southern Ontario, said that her son was among those injured in the fire. Ms. Keane, in a statement posted to her social media, said she would suspend her campaigning to travel to Alberta. “As a mother, right now I need to be with my son and family,” Ms. Keane said in the statement.
The post Fire at Canadian Army Base Killed 4 and Injured 39, Officials Say appeared first on New York Times.
