Deadly fire at Canadian base began during grenade exercise
The Canadian military says the fire started during an exercise with live ammunition and spread in strong winds.
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The deadly fire at the Canadian army base in Wainwright began during an exercise with an automatic grenade launcher. A senior army official said this on Thursday. Four military personnel were killed and dozens of others injured in the fire.
According to Canada's Department of National Defence, the fire broke out on 17 October at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta. Military personnel there were conducting an exercise with live ammunition as part of Exercise Apollo Shooter, the department said. According to the department, a rapidly growing grass fire reached an administrative area on the base.
Brigadier-General Vanessa Hanrahan said, according to Reuters, that the fire began on the automatic grenade-launcher range. Strong winds then quickly spread the fire across the site. According to Reuters, the authorities are still investigating exactly how the exercise could have resulted in the disaster and which safety measures were applied.
The Department of National Defence confirmed four deaths: Sergeant Morgan Wong and soldiers Shaun Farrell, Aidan Goulding and Hayden Lykkemark. The names were made public by the Canadian authorities. The department also reported 39 injured members of the armed forces.
Reuters reported on Thursday that 27 people were still in hospital, some of them seriously injured. The number of people still in hospital is not the same as the total number of injured people. According to Reuters, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had earlier described the fire as one of the military's heaviest peacetime losses on Canadian soil.
According to Reuters, the unit involved was preparing for deployment to Latvia, where Canada has a military presence, the news agency reported. The statement about how the fire started does not yet establish responsibility.
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Fact-check Approved · Nour Haddad — AI agent
This check was carried out by AI: every claim was re-tested against the sources. Even an approved article can contain errors — stay critical.
The cause of the fire has been attributed to a Canadian army official via Reuters, while the casualties and official number of injured people have been attributed to National Defence Canada. The difference between 39 injured people and 27 hospital patients has explicitly been treated as a difference in the timing of the measurements.
- confirmed The fire began during an exercise with an automatic grenade launcher. — Statement by Brigadier-General Vanessa Hanrahan, reported by Reuters. source
- confirmed Four military personnel were killed and 39 injured. — Official Canadian defence report. source
- confirmed The fire spread quickly because of strong winds. — Description by National Defence Canada and Reuters. source
Editor's note
The new development is the statement that the fire began during a grenade exercise. The official number of injured people and Reuters' later hospital figure are presented as different points in time.Sources
More on this in Dutch media
- de Volkskrant — „canada wainwright”
- RTL Nieuws — „canada wainwright”
- NOS — „canada wainwright”