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On Sunday morning, people gathered at Wainwright’s Church of the Nazarene, where some military families occasionally worship, to pray for those killed, injured, or otherwise affected by the events at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
Residents of Wainwright, Alta., are accustomed to the thunder of artillery fire and detonations from training exercises on the military base next door. It’s so close, sometimes people can feel the walls of their house rattle after an explosion.
“You hear explosions but you get used to it,” said long-time Wainwright resident Bob Porter, who described being inured to the sounds of the base as similar to being “nose blind.”
“Like, if you hear the train all day long, by the afternoon or next day, you don’t hear it,” he said. “The same with them out there shooting away.”
His wife, Tanya Porter, said she saw a wall of smoke south of town in the direction of the base at roughly 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, right as gusts of wind exceeding 100 kilometres an hour blew into town.
“I was like, ‘Is that a fire or dust?’ But I didn’t hear any explosion. They were bombing all day,” she said while she and her husband, Bob, ate brunch at the Wainwright Legion on Sunday morning.
Live updates: Military identifies four members killed in CFB Wainwright fire
The town and base have lived side-by-side for more than 85 years, when the Department of National Defence took over what was Buffalo National Park to create a military training and ammunition storage facility.
The base, which spans more than 1,500 square kilometres and is properly known as the 3rd Canadian Division Support Base Detachment Wainwright, is one of the country’s biggest and most highly-used military training facilities.
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A sign for the military, the day after the blaze, in Wainwright, Alta.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
The town of Wainwright is located just over two hours southeast of Edmonton. The main gate to CFB Wainwright is minutes from Main Street, on the southwest side of the town.
While the town of about 7,000 has other industries – including petroleum and agriculture – and military people travelling to Wainwright tend to stay mostly on the base, the two communities are inextricably linked.
Walking his dogs beside a retired Canadian Sherman military tank set in Wallace Park on Sunday morning, Greg Desrosenroll said he didn’t know any details about what happened on the base, but was very concerned about everyone involved.
Deadly blaze began as grass fire that wind whipped into ‘wall of flame,’ early military communications indicate
“I’ve been here for a long time. It’s not the first accident,” said Mr. Desrosenroll, an army veteran who has worked on the base for more than 20 years as a civilian. “I don’t know. Was it the wind that caused it?”
Across the street, a man lowered the flags of a provincial building to half-mast.
A vast area of rolling grasslands on and around the military base was charred black from fire, with white-grey smoke still drifting out of stands of trees in the gusting wind on Sunday afternoon.
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Flags sit at half mast outside the Wainwright Provincial Building in Wainwright, Alta., on Oct. 18.Amanda Erickson/The Globe and Mail
Wainwright Fire Chief Aime Smyl said there were about 30 firefighters still working to put out hotspots in the area. He noted that Wainwright fire crews were only responding to fire that had moved outside the base, where the blaze had started.
Pre-existing signs posted on the base’s fenceline warn locals away from the property, with messages like: “THERE ARE BOMBS INSIDE. THEY CAN KILL YOU.”
On Sunday morning, about two dozen people gathered at Wainwright’s Church of the Nazarene, where some military families occasionally worship, to pray for those killed, injured, or otherwise affected by the events on the base.
What we know so far about the fire at CFB Wainwright
“It is with heavy hearts and concerned minds, as we think about the tragedy unfolding in our community,” Rev. Ryan Wood told the congregation. “We think of the families of those who have lost their lives, we want to pray for them today in midst of this terrible loss and grief.”
He also thanked first responders and people from the community and surrounding area “who have been on a horrific scene, who are impacted by the tragedy and the loss that they’ve witnessed.”
Standing at the back of the church, Devon Theissen was overcome by emotion.
“The impact of yesterday, and hearing about the tragedy and the traumas other people are experiencing, it really made me grateful for what I have,” he said, as tears welled in his eyes
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Devon Thiessen is overcome by emotion at the Wainwright Church of the Nazarene in a prayer for those killed and injured in an explosion and fire at CFB Wainwright in Alberta on Oct. 18.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
Around Wainwright, word about what happened on the base was still beginning to circulate.
Working her shift at the Petro-Canada gas station, 17-year-old Talyn Rinas said she was playing in a volleyball tournament at Wainwright High School when her friend’s boyfriend, a volunteer firefighter, got a call-out.
“We heard his phone go off, and normally when it goes off they all leave, but it’s never anything serious. It’s just something small,” she said.
She said they didn’t think anything of it until they left the school, and saw ambulances flooding in.
“The whole parking lot was ambulances, just scattered,” she said.
She said people are shaken up, and waiting to hear more details about what happened, as speculation and rumours travel on social media and in group chats.
“Everyone I’ve talked to is just sad that it happened, and it’s terrible,” she said.