{"id":943269,"date":"2026-10-23T11:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T11:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/943269\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T11:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T11:26:10","slug":"grenade-exercise-sparked-deadly-fire-at-canada-military-base-army-says-military-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/943269\/","title":{"rendered":"Grenade exercise sparked deadly fire at Canada military base, army says | Military News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">High winds propelled the blaze across the army base in Wainwright, killing four soldiers and injuring dozens more.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"avatar\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/author\/al_jazeera_staff_150119130629458\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792754770_745_2017-06-08T131939Z_1189275883_RC11B0FE7F20_RTRMADP_3_GULF-QATAR-JAZEERA-1714943623.jpg\"   aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Published On 23 Oct 202623 Oct 2026<\/p>\n<p>A fire that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/10\/18\/deaths-injuries-after-fire-at-alberta-military-base-canada-minister\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">killed four soldiers<\/a> at a western Canadian military base was sparked by an exercise using live grenades, a military official said.<\/p>\n<p>The deadly fire broke out on a grenade launcher range during military exercises on Saturday, with high winds propelling it across the base, Brigadier-General Vanessa Hanrahan, commander of the Canadian Forces Military Police Group, told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA subsequent change in wind direction and velocity significantly increased the fire\u2019s intensity,\u201d she added, with the flames spreading to a training area at the Wainwright military base in Alberta.<\/p>\n<p>Due to the blaze being in the \u201cpermanent danger area\u201d of the range, firefighters were unable to directly combat it, Hanrahan added.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/10\/19\/how-a-grass-fire-at-a-canadian-military-base-killed-four-soldiers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fire spread<\/a> on Saturday afternoon during high-intensity combat training involving Charlie Company of the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia\u2019s Canadian Light Infantry.<\/p>\n<p>The military base lies in the prairies, a landscape of wide, open grasslands, rolling plains and scattered groves of trees.<\/p>\n<p>About 84 soldiers were split between a grenade range and an area where they practised attacks on simulated enemy positions. The fire swept into the second training area.<\/p>\n<p>Four soldiers died and 39 were injured, with 27 requiring hospitalisation. The incident was one of the worst peacetime tragedies for Canada\u2019s military.<\/p>\n<p>The soldiers and reserve members were participating in exercises ahead of a planned deployment to Latvia, where Canadian forces have their largest international military operation.<\/p>\n<p>The Wainwright base is one of the largest bases operated by the Canadian Armed Forces. It regularly hosts training exercises involving military personnel from NATO countries.<\/p>\n<p>During the final months of World War II and for several months in 1946, the base was used as an internment centre for German prisoners of war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High winds propelled the blaze across the army base in Wainwright, killing four soldiers and injuring dozens more.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,3456,28461,66994,14207,49364,44,1690,8725,1133],"class_list":["post-943269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-europe","tag-investigation","tag-latvia","tag-military","tag-nato","tag-news","tag-us-canada","tag-weapons","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}