Four soldiers dead, dozens injured in fire at Canada military base

Four soldiers were killed and dozens injured in a fire at a military base in Alberta province, one of the worst peacetime tragedies to hit Canada’s armed forces on home soil, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Sunday. Carney made the solemn announcement without providing details on what caused the fire at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright on Saturday. “It is with deep sadness that I can confirm, at this time, that four service members have lost their lives and that their loved ones have been notified,” Carney said in the capital Ottawa, adding that “dozens of others have been seriously injured”. “This is one of the worst tragedies the Canadian Armed Forces have experienced on Canadian soil in peacetime,” he said. Canadian Defence Minister David McGuinty said late on Saturday there were “fatalities and injuries” following an incident at a military base in western Canada.

“I’m saddened to share that there have been both fatalities and injuries as a result of an incident on the base,” McGuinty said. Prime Minister Mark Carney had posted to X earlier on Saturday that “a serious incident creating a major fire” had occurred at the base. Neither offered details on the number of casualties or the nature of the incident at CFB Wainwright, located about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton. “We will have more to say in the coming hours and days,” McGuinty said. A doctor at a hospital in the city of Edmonton, about 200 km northwest of the base, told public broadcaster CBC that Wainwright’s health-care facilities were “completely overwhelmed” by the number of patients requiring care. “It is more patients than any of us want to count right now,” Warren Thirsk said. “It’s a disaster. It’s a one in every 15 to 25-year disaster. ” According to the Department of National Defence, the fire…