CFB Wainwright investigation ‘will take months,' says retired major-general

These are the four soldiers killed in the fire at CFB Wainwright. The troops were conducting live fire exercises in preparation for a foreign deployment. And as they did, a grass fire moved rapidly towards their position, pushed by high winds. Along with the four who have died, 39 other soldiers were sent to hospital, 19 of them in critical condition. Key to the investigation is that fire. What caused it? Did range controllers know that wind gusts might push it towards troops? Investigators are now combing through the evidence in the field on the base. We want to get a better understanding of how the process will go forward from here. We've got retired Major General Dennis Thompson with us. Dennis Thompson, good morning to you. Good morning, David. There are key questions here, and I don't want to overly speculate on a cause, but I do want to ask about the range control officer. This is somebody who on the base has the power to say training continues or does not continue. Can you explain to me more about their role? Well, it's not just safety. They also handle the scheduling of the ranges, making sure that the ranges are de-conflicted. And when you're running multiple live fire events on the same base, you have to make sure that the templates don't cross so that one range doesn't put another range in danger. um and and on top of that they've got to they've got to follow the uh the weather patterns etc and make sure that the fire index is set properly and they don't do this in isolation clearly they they rely on outside sources like Environment Canada etc so they uh and they routinely patrol the training area and check in on ranges to make sure that the safety procedures are being followed so there's a it's more of an overwatch function because the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the soldiers is the commander on the ground running the range now look you you weren't there i wasn't there um we don't know the cause and i as i say i don't want to overly speculate on it but you have been to CFB Wainwright and is it unusual that you would have a fire burning there in the middle of training not at all uh fires break out in all of our training areas frequently i mean we're dealing with uh live ammunition in terms of small arms there's tracer rounds that are mixed into a machine gun belt. Usually every fifth round is a tracer round. You've got high explosives, and they could be anything ranging from grenades up to and including heavy artillery and rockets. And of course, we do bring in air support periodically. So fires break out all the time. There is a robust firefighting section in most of these military camps, including Wainwright. But this one sounds like it was completely unexpected and came out of the blue. And again, Like you, I don't want to speculate on the causes. We are looking, though, at quite clearly some very serious burns and soldiers who not only have died, but soldiers who are in very serious condition with life-altering, potentially still life-threatening injuries. And I look at the broader unit. They were preparing to deploy to Latvia. Hundreds of soldiers were there. What does this do to that unit as it is preparing to go overseas into, you know, what is an environment that has quite a bit of risk? What does something like this in training do to the cohesiveness of that unit? Well, I'm glad you mentioned that this occurred in training, obviously. What it does is there is an expectation that when you go overseas, you may or may not suffer casualties. And so you try and build into your soldiers the resilience necessary so that they can work through that and stay in the fight, so to speak. But when it happens on training like this, it's completely out of the blue and it makes it that much more difficult. It doesn't change the fact that the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, is still slated to go to Latvia and will go to Latvia in the spring. And so it becomes a leadership challenge right through from the commanding officer through all of the leadership inside of that battalion to resolve this incident, obviously, and to get to the bottom of it. but also to build the, build the, build back, get back on the horse is essentially what I'm saying, so that they can go overseas and get the job done. There are two parallel investigations, military police and what will be a board of inquiry called to look into this. They could look at individuals who are preparing to deploy as those individuals, I suppose. Again, I don't want to overly speculate, but they'll be interviewing people as key witnesses. I do want to ask about the BOI itself. I think back to Friendly Fire in 2002, that was the last very high-profile Board of Inquiry. It was a former Chief of Defence staff called in to lead that. Who would you get to lead this investigation, and what would they do exactly? Well, first of all, a Board of Inquiry, as you quite rightly pointed out, it's not a criminal investigation. The whole idea is that the convening order will lay out what the questions are to be asked and what they want to find out. And the bottom line here is you need to know what were the facts and then come up with the findings. In other words, what happened sort of second by second, minute by minute, preceding and post the operation, and then what findings you determine in terms of cause of death of certain members and injury, et cetera, and finally land on some recommendations. So given the magnitude of this incident, it's quite possible that they could bring in a retired general officer. But I certainly think it will be a general officer, not one that's in the current chain of command. Somebody from outside, assisted by a couple of other officers or senior NCOs, perhaps a regimental sergeant major. and then backed up by a team of advisors to make sure that they understand all of the implications with respect, whether they're medical implications or, as we were just talking about, ammunition implications, et cetera. So it's complex, and as stated yesterday in a press conference, it's not going to happen in weeks. This will take months to get to the bottom of. Lastly, Dennis Thompson, I do want to ask you, because you used the word magnitude, The size of this is quite nearly unprecedented in terms of the number of casualties killed and injured here. I think back to incidents in Chilliwack, in Petawawa, in decades past. And it strikes me that this is a particularly dark event for the Canadian Armed Forces. You have a long history with the organization. Do you see it in the same stark terms? I certainly do, but there's an aspect to this. And again, it's it would be wrong to speculate, but there's an aspect of this that seems to be more of a freak accident rather than a negligent performance of duty. But we'll again have to wait for the investigation to see its way through. It's tragic. I and my heart goes out to those soldiers that were injured as it's not my regiment, but it's a regiment that I have a high respect for. And my thoughts are with those soldiers that are injured, trying to get through burn injuries, which are very painful. And of course, for the families of those that lost their loved ones, this is a tough moment. But when you join the Canadian forces, you sign an unlimited liability clause. And unfortunately, this is sometimes the price that has to be paid. Dennis Thompson, thank you very much. Thank you. Take care.