{"id":658996,"date":"2026-10-19T03:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T03:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658996\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T03:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T03:58:10","slug":"at-least-four-dead-after-fire-at-canadian-military-base-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658996\/","title":{"rendered":"At least four dead after fire at Canadian military base \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u200b A weekend fire at an Alberta military base killed at least four people and seriously injured dozens in what prime minister Mark Carney<\/a> called one of the worst peacetime tragedies ever for Canada<\/a>\u2019s armed forces on home soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nation is in mourning for those brave members \u200bof our armed forces whom we have lost,\u201d Carney said on Sunday, adding that he had ordered flags on federal buildings across the country to be lowered \u2060to half-staff to honour the victims.<\/p>\n

CBC, the government-funded national broadcaster, had previously reported seven deaths at Canadian Forces Base \u200cWainwright, \u200cciting unnamed \u200bsources. Canadian authorities have said the situation continues to evolve and that they will not confirm casualty figures until next of kin have been notified.<\/p>\n

CFB Wainwright had 1,310 military \u2060and civilian personnel stationed there as of 2021, \u200baccording to census data. The base, one of Canada\u2019s largest, \u200bis about 210km (130 miles) east of Edmonton in Alberta. National defence minister David McGuinty said on Sunday he would go \u200cto the city for briefings on the situation.<\/p>\n

The \u200bbase houses the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre, which runs training scenarios and exercises for the army. Carney said those \u2060affected in Saturday\u2019s fire came from military bases across \u2060the country.<\/p>\n

Few details have \u200bbeen released about the cause of the fire, which broke out at about 4pm (11pm Irish time) on Saturday in a training area at the base as winds gusted at 96km\/h (60m\/h). <\/p>\n

The Canadian military said on Sunday there were no indications that the incident was the result of terrorism, but the cause remained under investigation.<\/p>\n

Military and civilian firefighters tackled the blaze through the night in \u201csome of the worst conditions imaginable\u201d, Carney said.<\/p>\n

Canadian officials are expected to address the public from Wainwright, which is located in a largely rural area, later on Sunday. <\/p>\n

Air ambulances from Edmonton and Saskatoon, which is about 300km from Wainwright, flew to the \u200cmilitary base on Saturday, Carney \u2060said. Patients are being treated in Edmonton, Wainwright, Calgary and Red Deer.<\/p>\n

Health staff in Edmonton said a \u201ccode orange\u201d, or mass-casualty event, was declared to co-ordinate the medical response for patients being transported \u200cfrom Wainwright, CBC News reported.<\/p>\n

The town of Wainwright, with a population of about 6,600, is just north of the base.<\/p>\n

The municipality posted on social \u200bmedia that the fire had crossed the base fence into the nearby district, but \u200bno evacuation orders had been issued. It said on Sunday that the fire is not expected to spread beyond its current boundaries. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200b A weekend fire at an Alberta military base killed at least four people and seriously injured dozens…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[289,42,8189,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-658996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-canada","tag-headlines","tag-mark-carney","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}