People have been killed and injured in an incident that caused a major fire at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta, Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty said Saturday. Authorities have not released a death toll or said what caused the incident.
"I'm saddened to share that there have been both fatalities and injuries as a result of an incident on the base," McGuinty told reporters in Ottawa, describing the situation as very active and delicate. He said he could not recall an incident like it in recent memory.
The Canadian Armed Forces said a fire was reported on the base's training range at about 4 p.m. local time and spread beyond the training area. Strong winds pushed the blaze across the base fence and into the surrounding district, where firefighters from several jurisdictions were working to contain it. No evacuation order had been issued as of Saturday evening.
Alberta MP Dane Lloyd said he was hearing of "significant casualties" after an explosion and fire at the base. Officials have described the incident only as a fire and have not confirmed an explosion. The RCMP is investigating.
The scale of the medical response points to a large number of casualties. Hospitals in Edmonton declared a code orange, a disaster protocol, to handle patients transferred from Wainwright. Warren Thirsk, an emergency physician at Edmonton's Royal Alexandra Hospital, told CBC News that Wainwright's medical facilities were completely overwhelmed.
"It is more patients than any of us want to count right now," he said.
STARS air ambulance sent two aircraft, from Edmonton and Saskatoon, and local officials asked residents to stay away from the Wainwright Health Centre unless they had a critical medical need.
Gen. Jennie Carignan, Canada's chief of the defense staff, said the military was fully engaged with federal, provincial and local authorities, and that its priority was the welfare of members, their families and the community. Prime Minister Mark Carney called it a serious incident, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the fire was affecting many military personnel.
CFB Wainwright, about 200 kilometers southeast of Edmonton, is the Canadian military's main live-fire training base and one of its busiest. It is home to the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre and the 3rd Canadian Division Training Centre.
