Prime Minister Mark Carney told Canada on Sunday that a massive fire at a military base in Alberta killed four service members and resulted in serious injuries to dozens more. In a televised address, Carney said they were participating in military training when the fire broke out Saturday, per the AP. "What followed was one of the worst tragedies for the forces on Canadian soil in peacetime," Carney told reporters, per the New York Times. The cause of the fire is unknown, but the military said Sunday there were no indications that terrorism was involved.
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CBC notes that the Canadian Forces Base Wainwright is the military's primary training facility for live-fire exercises, which means it has large storage facilities with explosive material, "everything from tank shells to material used to breach walls," writes David Common. Such training takes place in open fields, in wooded areas, and sometimes in buildings set up to replicate wartime battles. Fire crews scrambled late into Saturday night as fierce winds whipped flames beyond the base and into the surrounding rural area. A doctor in Edmonton, about 120 miles northwest, told Canada's national broadcaster that patients were being brought to hospitals across the city as health-care facilities near the base were swamped.
"This number of patients would overwhelm the city of Edmonton," said Dr. Warren Thirsk, an emergency department physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. He called it a "disaster." The fire also disrupted advance voting ahead of Monday's referendum on whether Alberta should begin a process that could lead to independence from Canada. Carney said he's asked officials to produce a detailed timeline of the events later Sunday. "Canadians come together in crisis," he said. "That is the best of our country."
This file has been updated with Carney's address.
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