Fatal CFB Wainwright fire the latest tragedy at the Alberta CAF base

While the vast majority of Canadian Armed Forces members’ deaths have occurred during wartime, the CAF has known no shortage of non-wartime tragedies at domestic and international bases over its storied and valiant history.

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Before the fire that swept through the training area at CFB Wainwright in Alberta on Saturday, killing four soldiers and injuring 39 more — 19 critically — “10 Canadians have died in accidents while serving in the military” since 2020, according to The Canadian Virtual War Memorial.

One of those was Cpl. James Choi, a 29-year-old member of the Royal Westminster Regiment based in New Westminster, B.C., who was shot during a nighttime live-fire training exercise at CFB Wainwright in October 2020.

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Choi, who had joined just four years prior and was training with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) at the time, was treated on the scene before being flown to Edmonton, where he died in hospital, National Post reported at the time.

Cpl. Lars Callsen of the PPCLI’s 3rd Battalion was charged in May 2021 with one count of negligence in Choi’s death, but prosecutors with the Department of National Defence opted not to pursue the charges, CBC reported in 2023.

Defence officials didn’t explain why at the time and said Callsen returned to serve with his unit.

The busy base in Wainwright, about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton, is home to the CAF’s Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre (CMTC) and the 3rd Canadian Division Training Centre (3 CDTC), and has experienced several fatal incidents in the last 20 or so years.

In April 2017, Royal Canadian Dragoons Sgt. Robbery (Bobby) J. Dynerowicz, a 31-year-old veteran of 12 years who’d served two tours in Afghanistan, died in a single-vehicle crash when the light armoured vehicle (LAV) he was commanding crashed on a heavily travelled gravel road on the base.

Three other soldiers aboard were injured, per the Edmonton Journal.

That particular vehicle, the LAV-III, had been involved in 14 rollover incidents resulting in at least eight deaths since it was introduced for use in 1999, the Ottawa Citizen reported in 2014.

The Citizen’s report was prompted by a rollover that May that caused the death of Lt.-Col. Dan Bobbitt, commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery’s 2nd Regiment, based in Garrison Petawawa, Ont.

The 43-year-old married father of three had served two tours in Bosnia and one in Afghanistan before his death.

The accident happened during Exercise Maple Resolve, the largest Canadian military exercise of the year at CFB Wainwright with about 5000 personnel, the Citizen reported.

In November 2014, 20-year-old Pte. Pete Allen, a rookie soldier with barely a year of service under his belt, died from injuries suffered when the three-metre-high lookout-type tower he was standing on collapsed.

As reported by National Post, Allen was recruited in October 2013, completed basic training in January and had been posted to Wainwright’s 3rd Canadian Division Training Centre to become a regular force infantry soldier.

Cpl. Christopher Deliva, a 27-year-old from Montreal, died in hospital after suffering serious injuries in May 2007 when the 10-tonne truck he was driving rolled over while rounding a curve at Wainwright, the Montreal Gazette reported.

The supply technician had joined the military in September 2000 and was set to deploy in Afghanistan in 2009.

Another Quebec-born service member, Pte. Patrick Dessureault, a 24-year-old from Alma, is believed to have “died instantly” in September 2005 when the LAV-III he and three other visiting soldiers from CFB Valcartier were in rolled over into Battle River during a night exercise.

His commanding officer told the Gazette that Dessureault was in the vehicle’s hatch and suffered a fatal neck injury.

He’d enlisted two years prior and was training for an overseas deployment in 2006.

Soldiers from other allied countries often visit CFB Wainwright for joint training exercises, one of whom was killed in an airfield accident in 2008.

That May, 25-year-old U.S. Army Specialist Josef Cerfus was killed while practicing “swing load” operations with a Chinook helicopter when the netted load fell on him. He was pronounced dead at the hospital in Wainwright.

Tens of thousands of soldiers from Canada and elsewhere have schooled in the art of war at CFB Wainwright since it was first established as a military training area in 1941 after the namesake town’s mayor asked Ottawa to take over adjacent vacant land that was once Buffalo National Park — one of several national parks created in Canada after the turn of the 20th century to help protect Prairie plains bison populations.

For roughly 17 months after WWII, it housed over 1,000 German prisoners of war, after which it reverted to a training ground for the Korean War, according to an archived government website. The 609-square-kilometre facility earned CFB designation in 1968 and has been the Canadian Army’s main training area in Western Canada ever since.

Forces stationed there include the PPCLI and the Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group.

The Royal Canadian Air Force also routinely uses the area and its airfields, as have international forces, including the British Army, which ended a twenty-year residency in 2005.

Its regular personnel are roughly 700 military members and 300 civilians.

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