Grenade exercise sparked deadly fire at Canada military base, army says

A fire that killed four soldiers at a western Canadian military base was sparked by an exercise using live grenades, a military official said. The deadly fire broke out on a grenade launcher range during military exercises on Saturday, with high winds propelling it across the base, Brigadier-General Vanessa Hanrahan, commander of the Canadian Forces Military Police Group, told reporters on Thursday. “A subsequent change in wind direction and velocity significantly increased the fire’s intensity,” she added, with the flames spreading to a training area at the Wainwright military base in Alberta. Due to the blaze being in the “permanent danger area” of the range, firefighters were unable to directly combat it, Hanrahan added.