4 dead, dozens wounded after large fire breaks out at Canadian military base, officials say

Updated on: October 18, 2026 / 12:54 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Four service members were killed in an incident at a military base in the Canadian province of Alberta, which caused a major fire, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday. Dozens of others were seriously wounded, he added.

Carney said he'd requested a detailed account and formal briefing on the incident at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Wainwright, which senior officials on the ground at the site were expected to deliver later on Sunday.

After the incident happened on Saturday, a doctor at a hospital in the city of Edmonton, 120 miles northwest of the military base, told Canada's national broadcaster that patients were being brought to hospitals across the city as health care facilities around the base became "completely overwhelmed" by the number of people needing care.

"This number of patients would overwhelm the city of Edmonton," Dr. Warren Thirsk, an emergency department physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, told CBC News. "It is more patients than any of us want to count right now. It's a disaster. It's a one in every 15 to 25-year disaster."

"I'm saddened to share that there have been both fatalities and injuries…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/world/