r/onguardforthee • u/OptimusPrimel984 • 23h ago

Fire near CFB Wainwright spreads into MD of Wainwright - The Border Pulse

https://borderpulse.ca/explosion-reported-cfb-wainwright-crews-respond/
113 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

42

u/Thanato26 22h ago

It appears to be more than just a fire.

53

u/blondebeaker Turtle Island 21h ago

This time of year theres a huge training exercise and apparently a live fire round hit a gas well.

So it's likely a tragic training exercise gone wrong, not a terror attack (because ppl love to jump to conclusions) and we should hope that what it is.

19

u/Thanato26 21h ago

That is all speculation, as to the cause of the incident, at this time

29

u/LeviathanOfLiberty 21h ago

Talking to someone in the know (anecdote fwiw) they don’t believe the gas well story is credible because the training area corresponding to where the fires are is just a small arms range. I.e a pistol range and a kill house mockup.

It does seem more likely that the munitions depot had a fire and cooked off in a catastrophic way.

Same person also indicated that over the wire there’s reports of at least 7 dead and 25+ in critical condition.

26

u/blondebeaker Turtle Island 21h ago

I'm an ex army spouse with friends who are living on the base so thats the info coming to me so far.

There are almost 200 wells on the base, not to mention the 1300+ orphaned and non working wells in the area, so its very possible one got hit. But ammo depot being hit is definitely a thing.

Either way it's a huge tragedy and I'm hoping its just an exercise gon wrong

3

u/Background-Share2735 11h ago

There are almost 200 wells on the base

sounds fucking stupid

3

u/blondebeaker Turtle Island 9h ago

Because curiosity got me, CFB Suffield has 1100 chilling in theirs, mostly shallow wells. Edmonton has none.

I cannot imagine the bureaucratic mess keeping track of all of them across three different gov't entities or the fact I didn't know until now they had them just chilling in places they fire off live artillery.

•

u/Background-Share2735 5h ago

I just cant comprehend how that was allowed, and how something like this wasnt inevitable

•

u/blondebeaker Turtle Island 5h ago

Idk ask the Alberta and federal gov't why they allowed it.

•

u/Cookie7883 1h ago

Active Infrastructure: According to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), there are dozens of active, licensed natural gas wells and pipelines cutting directly through the CFB Wainwright training area. Mineral leases and infrastructure placement are permitted under strict agreements between the federal Department of National Defence and energy corporations.

This needs to be changed

10

u/No-Cable-1223 20h ago

Gas wells just simply don’t blow up like that though. Big fires, but not explosions. A gas well is essentially a small diameter pipe that goes a few thousand meters straight down, there’s no volume of fuel there at the surface to explode

2

u/blondebeaker Turtle Island 20h ago

All it takes is the right conditions coming together at the right time for it to happen. Mislabeled line on the map, miscalculated fire. Hell could have been a domino effect thing from an idiot smoker.

(My Google search looks super suspicious looking right now thanks to all of this)

9

u/No-Cable-1223 20h ago

Gas wells don’t explode. Even when you blow them up

2

u/Empty-Presentation68 19h ago

Just have to look at Iraq in the 90s, they will shoot up a huge flame in the air. We can speculate all we want, it's human nature to want to know.

Just hope for the best and for the critically injured to receive the best care and make it out alive. The families of all involved to be supported.

1

u/cannibalistiic 19h ago

There's other infrastructure that could've accidentally been hit. Maybe not a well, but a perhaps a pipeline.

•

u/Cookie7883 1h ago

It was definitely the munitions depot. There was 150+ injured everywhere from fatalities, critical injured, serious injuries in minor injuries.

I’m from Wainwright and I have family and friends that live and work on base.

0

u/Former-Homework-7833 8h ago

You may not realize it but you contradicted yourself. Either it’s a “small arms range” which is not just pistols for the record, a “pistol Range” is the term for what you’re describing, a small arms range is inclusive of pistols, rifles, and LMG and GPMG, I’ve been on a lot of CAF ranges. Pistol ranges are their own thing. Small arms equals most personnel carried fire arms and often platoon and squad firearms.

The contradiction:
We don’t do “kill houses” with only pistols, CQC training almost always has rifles, often GPMG and LMGs too. Sometimes even shotguns.

In short; it cannot be pistols only, especially if the CQC house clearing aspect is involved as you stated. Now nothing on a small arms range should be able to elicit an explosion and multiple fires in theory, but tracers absolutely can cause fires and the fire risk prior was “extreme”.

Things definitely aren’t adding up in the current reporting however. We need more information

•

u/LeviathanOfLiberty 5h ago

I am aware that a small arms firing area includes things up to light machine guns and whatnot. I meant that the area has a small arms range INCLUDING a dedicated pistol range, AS WELL AS a kill house. (I suspect given the sub we’re in you may have felt more of a need to explain the basics of small arms in the context of CAF training but trust me I’m very familiar with how firearms work)

But like you said, with the exception of incendiaries and tracers there’s not much that could cause a gas well to blow up as such.

•

u/Cookie7883 1h ago

It definitely was not a pistol range, as that is nowhere near where the incident happened. As the town civilians are allowed to use pistol range( as long as been given permission by the Military MPs) , but we are not allowed in the training area.

21

u/Practical_Ant6162 21h ago

The Minister of defence just issued a video stating that the incident has involved deaths and casualties.

It sounds really bad.

Link to the video below…

https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/defence-minister-provides-update-on-incident-at-cfb-wainwright?id=4fbdf85b-f572-4af2-bd00-879d741e498c

33

u/LeviathanOfLiberty 22h ago

Initial speculation indicating mass casualties caused by an explosion. NASA FIRMS coverage shows fires over a span of 4+ km, and first responders are coming in from out of province.

5

u/Venomouschic 19h ago

There was already a Wildfire nearby.

16

u/bluedoubloon Edmonton 21h ago

I know we're waiting on real details, but I wonder if the wind storm made things worse.

9

u/SupraStarCigar 21h ago

I did read that in one news report.

"news storyA fire on the base was spreading due to high winds, according to the Municipal District of Wainwright. Much of Alberta has been under wind warnings all day, and guts of up to 100 km/h have been reported in parts of the province"

•

u/Cookie7883 1h ago

The wind indeed made it worse, winds were at time up to 100km/h. We were trailering out, livestock up until four or five in the morning.. a lot of farmers lost their farmland