Fatalities and injuries after 'serious incident' leads to fire at CFB Wainwright

On Saturday at 4 p.m. a fire ignited within the training area of the Canadian Forces Base in Wainwright. That fire spread really quickly because of the strong winds the community was experiencing yesterday and that fire spread beyond the boundaries of the training camp. Now military and civilian emergency services responded really quickly and at the hospital last night when we arrived we saw something really unusual. There were flares in the sky and we saw parachutes being deployed and people were landing in a field right next to the hospital. It is unclear if the flares and the parachutes had anything to do with the incident at the base. We also know that you spent much of the night outside of the Wainwright Health Centre. I know you saw a lot of patients who were going in and out of that hospital or being transported in anyway. What do we know about those who are being treated and the extent of their injuries? Yeah, it's still unclear about some of the patients. When we arrived last night in Wainwright, on the way into town, actually, we were driving down the highway. We saw many ambulances driving past us, speeding towards Edmonton, likely due to this situation. And when we arrived at the hospital, I saw about a dozen ambulances all sitting outside of the hospital with their lights on. and at one point in the evening we also saw a helicopter land in a field next to the hospital now I did see some patients in the bay of the hospital one patient I saw was being pulled out and put into an ambulance and escorted out of the hospital the patient had bandages wrapped around his their head covering their ears I saw a second patient and it was really hard to tell their condition they were wrapped up in blankets the conditions last night were really frigid so I imagine they were trying to keep the patients as warm as possible uh it was very very windy and very cold last night and i was able to speak to an individual who was from Wainwright a man who decided to come to the hospital to see what happened he said he had heard that there was an incident and he told me that he couldn't fall asleep not knowing what was happening so he needed to come down to the hospital just to check it out he said it's one of the worst uh situations he's seen in Wainwright. And we heard that same thing from the mayor of Wainwright, Bruce Pugh. He spoke to my colleagues last night and he said the incident, the magnitude of the incident is unimaginable. This would be the largest mass casualty event that we've seen in this community. It's a very heavy day on the town in terms of the social fabric of the community. Again, we have neighbours who are either serving or former members of the Canadian Armed Forces. We're integrated. Our kids play in the same hockey teams, attend the same schools. We share our lives. And so that part is very hard. Of course, we're also really worried about our community members and friends and neighbours who work in our Wainwright Hospital. Now, this morning we stopped at the hospital and it was pretty quiet there. there weren't many ambulances outside uh so we'll we'll have to wait and see what we're we're able to uh learn more about uh today about the incident uh and and when it comes to the amount of casualties casualties and the people injured in this incident we're we're still unsure as we've been hearing from officials they are making sure to reach out to families before they release those numbers so we'll just have to wait and see Thank you.