A fire that killed four members of the Canadian military and injured dozens of others on Saturday spread with alarming speed, accounts suggest.
It broke out in a grassy training area at a base in the province of Alberta and spread rapidly due to strong winds.
“The fire was 1km (0.6 miles) away when the wind shifted,” said Maj-Gen Wade Rutland, commander of the 1st Canadian Division of the Canadian Armed Forces. “It is not normal for a fire to move a kilometre in 30 to 60 seconds.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney described it as “one of the worst tragedies for the forces on Canadian soil in peacetime”. Officials have ruled out the possibility of “any terrorist activity”.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday, Carney said the fire was “driven by ferocious winds”.
“The fire jumped nearly a kilometre less than a minute to where the soldiers were gathered,” he said, adding that the cause of the fire was not yet known.
Carney said the injuries occurred “in the space of a few minutes”.
The blaze began at about 16:00 (22:00 GMT) on Saturday at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright, one of the country’s busiest military training bases.
Carney confirmed that Sgt Morgan Wong, Pte Shaun Farrell, Pte Aidan Goulding and Pte Hayden Lykkemark have died.
He said the troops were preparing to be sent to Latvia and were training to join the Canadian Armed Forces’ Global Response Task Force, “which can deploy within hours anywhere in the world Canada needs them”.
Of the 39 injured people receiving care in hospital, at least 19 are in a critical condition.
Warren Thirsk, an emergency department doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, told Canadian broadcaster CBC that the number of patients involved in the incident had “completely overwhelmed” healthcare facilities in Wainwright.
