WEBVTT
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These are the four soldiers killed in the fire at
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CFB Wainwright. The troops were conducting live fire exercises in
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preparation for a foreign deployment. And as they did, a
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grass fire moved rapidly towards their position, pushed by high winds.
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Along with the four who have died, 39 other soldiers
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were sent to hospital, 19 of them in critical condition.
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Key to the investigation is that fire. What caused it?
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Did range controllers know that wind gusts might push it
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towards troops? Investigators are now combing through the evidence in
10
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the field on the base. We want to get a
11
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better understanding of how the process will go forward from here.
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We've got retired Major General Dennis Thompson with us. Dennis Thompson,
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good morning to you.
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Good morning, David.
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There are key questions here, and I don't want to
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overly speculate on a cause, but I do want to
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ask about the range control officer. This is somebody who
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on the base has the the power to say training
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continues or does not continue. Can you explain to me
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more about their role?
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Well, it's not just safety.
22
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They also handle the scheduling of the ranges, making sure
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that the ranges are deconflicted. And when you're running multiple
24
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live fire events on the same base, you have to
25
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make sure that the templates don't cross so that one
26
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range doesn't put another range in danger. and on top
27
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of that, they've got to follow the weather patterns, etc.,
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and make sure that the fire index is set properly,
29
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and they don't do this in isolation. Clearly, they rely
30
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on outside sources like Environment Canada, etc., and they routinely
31
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patrol the training area and check in on ranges to
32
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make sure that the safety procedures are being followed, so
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there's a It's more of an overwatch function because the
34
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ultimate responsibility for the safety of the soldiers is the
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commander on the ground running the range.
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Now, look, you weren't there. I wasn't there. We don't
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know the cause. And as I say, I don't want
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to overly speculate on it. But you have been to
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CFB Wainwright. And is it unusual that you would have
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a fire burning there in the middle of training?
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Not at all.
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Fires break out in all of our training areas frequently.
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I mean, we're dealing with live ammunition. In terms of
44
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small arms, there's tracer rounds that are mixed into a
45
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machine gun belt. Usually every fifth round is a tracer round.
46
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You've got high explosives, and they could be anything ranging
47
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from grenades up to and including heavy artillery and rockets. And,
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of course, we do bring in air support periodically. So
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fires break out all the time. There is a robust
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firefighting section in most of these military camps, including Wainwright.
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But this one sounds like it was completely unexpected and
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came out of the blue.
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And again, like you, I don't want to speculate on
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the causes.
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We are looking, though, at quite clearly some very serious
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burns and soldiers who not only have died, but soldiers
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who are in very serious condition with life altering, potentially
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still life threatening injuries. And I look at the broader
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unit they were preparing to deploy to Latvia. Hundreds of
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soldiers were there. What does this do to that unit
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as it is preparing to go overseas into, you know,
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what is an environment that has quite a bit of risk?
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What does something like this in training do to the
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cohesiveness of that unit?
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Well, I'm glad you mentioned that this occurred in training, obviously.
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What it does is there is an expectation that when
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you go overseas, you may or may not suffer casualties.
68
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And so you try and build into your soldiers the
69
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resilience necessary so that they can work through that and
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stay in the fight, so to speak. But when it
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happens on training like this, it's completely out of the
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blue and.
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It makes it that much more difficult. It doesn't change
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the fact.
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That the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, is
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still slated to go to Latvia and will go to
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Latvia in the spring. And so it becomes a leadership
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challenge right through from the commanding officer through all of
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the leadership inside of that battalion to resolve this incident, obviously,
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and to get to the bottom of it, but also
81
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to build back, get back on the horse is essentially
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what I'm saying, so that they can go overseas and
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get the job done.
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There are two parallel investigations, military police and what will
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be a board of inquiry called to look into this.
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They could look at individuals who are preparing to deploy
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as those individuals, I suppose. Again, I don't want to
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overly speculate, but they'll be interviewing people as key witnesses.
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I do want to ask about the BOI itself. I
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think back to Friendly Fire in 2002, that was the
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last very high profile board of inquiry. It was a
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former chief of defence staff called in to lead that.
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Who would you get to lead this investigation and what
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would they do exactly?
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Well, first of all, a board of inquiry, as you
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quite rightly pointed out, it's not a criminal investigation.
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The whole idea is that the.
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Convening order will lay out what the questions are to
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be asked and what they want to find out. And
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the bottom line here is you need to know what
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were the facts and then come up with the findings.
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In other words, what happened sort of second by second,
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minute by minute, proceeding and post the operation and then
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what findings you determine in terms of cause of death
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of certain members and injury, etc.
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And finally land on some recommendations. So Given the.
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Magnitude of this incident, it's quite possible that they could
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bring in a retired general officer, but I certainly think
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it will be a general officer, not one that's in
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the current chain of command. Somebody from outside, assisted by
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a couple of other officers or senior NCOs, perhaps a
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regimental sergeant major. and then backed up by a team
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of advisors to make sure that they understand all of
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the implications with respect, whether they're medical implications or, as
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we were just talking about, ammunition implications, etc.
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So it's complex.
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And as stated yesterday in a press conference, it's not
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going to happen in weeks.
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This will take months to get to the bottom of.
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Lastly, Dennis Thompson, I do want to ask you, because
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you use the word magnitude, the size of this is...
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I mean, quite nearly unprecedented in terms of the number
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of casualties killed and injured here. I think back to
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incidents in Chilliwack, in Petawawa, in decades past. And it
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strikes me that this is a particularly dark event for
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the Canadian Armed Forces. You have a long history with
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the organization. Do you see it in the same stark terms?
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I certainly do. But there's an aspect to this. And again,
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it would be wrong to speculate, but there's an aspect
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to this that seems to be more of a freak
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accident rather than a negligent performance of duty. But we'll, again,
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have to wait for the investigation to see its way through.
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It's tragic.
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My heart goes out to those soldiers that were injured.
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It's not my regiment, but it's a regiment that I
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have a high respect for. And my thoughts are with
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those soldiers that are injured, trying to get through burn injuries,
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which are very painful. And, of course, for the families
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of those that lost their loved ones. This is a tough.
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Moment, but this....
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When you join the Canadian forces, you sign an unlimited
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liability clause. And unfortunately, this is sometimes the price that has.
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To be paid.
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Dennis Thompson, thank you very much.
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Thank you. Take care.
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These are the four soldiers killed in the fire at
2
00:00:03.700 --> 00:00:07.059
CFB Wainwright. The troops were conducting live fire exercises in
3
00:00:07.099 --> 00:00:10.179
preparation for a foreign deployment. And as they did, a
4
00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:15.039
grass fire moved rapidly towards their position, pushed by high winds.
5
00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:19.910
Along with the four who have died, 39 other soldiers
6
00:00:20.429 --> 00:00:24.370
were sent to hospital, 19 of them in critical condition.
7
00:00:25.449 --> 00:00:27.890
Key to the investigation is that fire. What caused it?
8
00:00:28.129 --> 00:00:30.730
Did range controllers know that wind gusts might push it
9
00:00:30.769 --> 00:00:34.469
towards troops? Investigators are now combing through the evidence in
10
00:00:34.509 --> 00:00:36.490
the field on the base. We want to get a
11
00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:39.109
better understanding of how the process will go forward from here.
12
00:00:39.310 --> 00:00:43.189
We've got retired Major General Dennis Thompson with us. Dennis Thompson,
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00:00:43.210 --> 00:00:43.770
good morning to you.
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00:00:45.090 --> 00:00:45.750
Good morning, David.
15
00:00:46.890 --> 00:00:48.649
There are key questions here, and I don't want to
16
00:00:48.829 --> 00:00:50.670
overly speculate on a cause, but I do want to
17
00:00:50.710 --> 00:00:53.549
ask about the range control officer. This is somebody who
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on the base has the the power to say training
19
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continues or does not continue. Can you explain to me
20
00:01:00.789 --> 00:01:01.789
more about their role?
21
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Well, it's not just safety.
22
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They also handle the scheduling of the ranges, making sure
23
00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:13.109
that the ranges are deconflicted. And when you're running multiple
24
00:01:13.150 --> 00:01:15.090
live fire events on the same base, you have to
25
00:01:15.129 --> 00:01:18.299
make sure that the templates don't cross so that one
26
00:01:18.379 --> 00:01:23.000
range doesn't put another range in danger. and on top
27
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of that, they've got to follow the weather patterns, etc.,
28
00:01:27.060 --> 00:01:29.379
and make sure that the fire index is set properly,
29
00:01:29.900 --> 00:01:32.519
and they don't do this in isolation. Clearly, they rely
30
00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.900
on outside sources like Environment Canada, etc., and they routinely
31
00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:40.989
patrol the training area and check in on ranges to
32
00:01:41.049 --> 00:01:44.069
make sure that the safety procedures are being followed, so
33
00:01:44.109 --> 00:01:47.370
there's a It's more of an overwatch function because the
34
00:01:47.530 --> 00:01:50.450
ultimate responsibility for the safety of the soldiers is the
35
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commander on the ground running the range.
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Now, look, you weren't there. I wasn't there. We don't
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know the cause. And as I say, I don't want
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to overly speculate on it. But you have been to
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00:02:00.790 --> 00:02:04.129
CFB Wainwright. And is it unusual that you would have
40
00:02:04.150 --> 00:02:05.950
a fire burning there in the middle of training?
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Not at all.
42
00:02:09.509 --> 00:02:12.150
Fires break out in all of our training areas frequently.
43
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I mean, we're dealing with live ammunition. In terms of
44
00:02:15.789 --> 00:02:18.229
small arms, there's tracer rounds that are mixed into a
45
00:02:18.270 --> 00:02:21.610
machine gun belt. Usually every fifth round is a tracer round.
46
00:02:22.169 --> 00:02:25.030
You've got high explosives, and they could be anything ranging
47
00:02:25.090 --> 00:02:28.939
from grenades up to and including heavy artillery and rockets. And,
48
00:02:28.960 --> 00:02:32.759
of course, we do bring in air support periodically. So
49
00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:37.340
fires break out all the time. There is a robust
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00:02:37.479 --> 00:02:42.379
firefighting section in most of these military camps, including Wainwright.
51
00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:46.020
But this one sounds like it was completely unexpected and
52
00:02:46.060 --> 00:02:46.800
came out of the blue.
53
00:02:46.840 --> 00:02:49.319
And again, like you, I don't want to speculate on
54
00:02:49.439 --> 00:02:49.979
the causes.
55
00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:53.599
We are looking, though, at quite clearly some very serious
56
00:02:53.659 --> 00:02:57.419
burns and soldiers who not only have died, but soldiers
57
00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:01.729
who are in very serious condition with life altering, potentially
58
00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:07.669
still life threatening injuries. And I look at the broader
59
00:03:07.770 --> 00:03:11.569
unit they were preparing to deploy to Latvia. Hundreds of
60
00:03:11.659 --> 00:03:15.620
soldiers were there. What does this do to that unit
61
00:03:16.060 --> 00:03:19.659
as it is preparing to go overseas into, you know,
62
00:03:20.139 --> 00:03:22.289
what is an environment that has quite a bit of risk?
63
00:03:22.389 --> 00:03:25.710
What does something like this in training do to the
64
00:03:25.810 --> 00:03:27.610
cohesiveness of that unit?
65
00:03:29.009 --> 00:03:31.830
Well, I'm glad you mentioned that this occurred in training, obviously.
66
00:03:32.750 --> 00:03:35.310
What it does is there is an expectation that when
67
00:03:35.349 --> 00:03:38.990
you go overseas, you may or may not suffer casualties.
68
00:03:39.389 --> 00:03:42.569
And so you try and build into your soldiers the
69
00:03:42.629 --> 00:03:45.909
resilience necessary so that they can work through that and
70
00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:48.360
stay in the fight, so to speak. But when it
71
00:03:48.419 --> 00:03:50.659
happens on training like this, it's completely out of the
72
00:03:50.699 --> 00:03:52.340
blue and.
73
00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:54.080
It makes it that much more difficult. It doesn't change
74
00:03:54.139 --> 00:03:54.500
the fact.
75
00:03:55.020 --> 00:03:57.879
That the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, is
76
00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:00.479
still slated to go to Latvia and will go to
77
00:04:00.539 --> 00:04:03.379
Latvia in the spring. And so it becomes a leadership
78
00:04:03.419 --> 00:04:06.500
challenge right through from the commanding officer through all of
79
00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:12.620
the leadership inside of that battalion to resolve this incident, obviously,
80
00:04:12.659 --> 00:04:14.360
and to get to the bottom of it, but also
81
00:04:14.460 --> 00:04:19.620
to build back, get back on the horse is essentially
82
00:04:19.639 --> 00:04:21.779
what I'm saying, so that they can go overseas and
83
00:04:21.819 --> 00:04:22.540
get the job done.
84
00:04:24.970 --> 00:04:28.329
There are two parallel investigations, military police and what will
85
00:04:28.370 --> 00:04:30.509
be a board of inquiry called to look into this.
86
00:04:31.329 --> 00:04:34.420
They could look at individuals who are preparing to deploy
87
00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:37.240
as those individuals, I suppose. Again, I don't want to
88
00:04:37.300 --> 00:04:40.819
overly speculate, but they'll be interviewing people as key witnesses.
89
00:04:41.980 --> 00:04:44.800
I do want to ask about the BOI itself. I
90
00:04:44.819 --> 00:04:47.699
think back to Friendly Fire in 2002, that was the
91
00:04:47.740 --> 00:04:50.480
last very high profile board of inquiry. It was a
92
00:04:50.500 --> 00:04:52.899
former chief of defence staff called in to lead that.
93
00:04:53.519 --> 00:04:55.699
Who would you get to lead this investigation and what
94
00:04:55.750 --> 00:04:56.750
would they do exactly?
95
00:04:58.829 --> 00:05:01.629
Well, first of all, a board of inquiry, as you
96
00:05:01.649 --> 00:05:04.149
quite rightly pointed out, it's not a criminal investigation.
97
00:05:04.230 --> 00:05:06.290
The whole idea is that the.
98
00:05:06.310 --> 00:05:09.290
Convening order will lay out what the questions are to
99
00:05:09.329 --> 00:05:11.290
be asked and what they want to find out. And
100
00:05:11.470 --> 00:05:13.949
the bottom line here is you need to know what
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were the facts and then come up with the findings.
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In other words, what happened sort of second by second,
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minute by minute, proceeding and post the operation and then
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what findings you determine in terms of cause of death
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of certain members and injury, etc.
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And finally land on some recommendations. So Given the.
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Magnitude of this incident, it's quite possible that they could
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bring in a retired general officer, but I certainly think
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it will be a general officer, not one that's in
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the current chain of command. Somebody from outside, assisted by
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a couple of other officers or senior NCOs, perhaps a
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regimental sergeant major. and then backed up by a team
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of advisors to make sure that they understand all of
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the implications with respect, whether they're medical implications or, as
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we were just talking about, ammunition implications, etc.
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So it's complex.
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And as stated yesterday in a press conference, it's not
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going to happen in weeks.
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This will take months to get to the bottom of.
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Lastly, Dennis Thompson, I do want to ask you, because
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you use the word magnitude, the size of this is...
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I mean, quite nearly unprecedented in terms of the number
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of casualties killed and injured here. I think back to
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incidents in Chilliwack, in Petawawa, in decades past. And it
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strikes me that this is a particularly dark event for
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the Canadian Armed Forces. You have a long history with
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the organization. Do you see it in the same stark terms?
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I certainly do. But there's an aspect to this. And again,
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it would be wrong to speculate, but there's an aspect
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to this that seems to be more of a freak
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accident rather than a negligent performance of duty. But we'll, again,
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have to wait for the investigation to see its way through.
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It's tragic.
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My heart goes out to those soldiers that were injured.
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It's not my regiment, but it's a regiment that I
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have a high respect for. And my thoughts are with
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those soldiers that are injured, trying to get through burn injuries,
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which are very painful. And, of course, for the families
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of those that lost their loved ones. This is a tough.
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Moment, but this....
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When you join the Canadian forces, you sign an unlimited
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liability clause. And unfortunately, this is sometimes the price that has.
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To be paid.
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Dennis Thompson, thank you very much.
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Thank you. Take care.
