Four Soldiers Named Among the Dead at the Alberta Base Fire
Four Canadian service members were killed and thirty-nine are in hospital, nineteen of them critically, after a grass fire ignited on a training range and strong winds drove it towards soldiers on exercise. The dead were named on Sunday evening as Sergeant Morgan Wong, Private Shaun Farrell, Private Aidan Goulding and Private Hayden Lykkemark.
This morning’s edition carried no figure and no cause, because the only ones available came from an outlet we do not use citing unnamed military sources. Both have now been settled on the record, and one of them was wrong. Major General Wade Rutland, commander of the 1st Canadian Division, said a grass fire started on a range and “uncommonly strong winds caused it to spread rapidly and shift direction”. The account that a gas main had been struck during live firing has been contradicted by the military itself, which says investigators do not believe any explosions were caused by oil or gas infrastructure. The toll is four, not the higher number that circulated. Mark Carney, addressing the country from Ottawa, called it “one of the worst tragedies for the forces on Canadian soil in peacetime” and ordered flags on all federal buildings to half-mast. Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith gave the hospital figures; a hospital in Edmonton declared a code orange on Saturday evening and stood it down on Sunday. There is no indication of terrorism. Alberta votes today on beginning the legal process towards a referendum on leaving Canada, and no approved source connects the two events.