Did Climate Change Play a Role in the Disaster at CFB Wainwright This Fall? (Opinion)

by Larry Powell

It's been described as the worst tragedy involving Canadian forces personnel on home soil in peacetime. Four service members died and 39 were injured (19 critically) in a raging grass fire on the training range at CFB wainwright, southeast of Edmonton last Saturday. According to a military spokesperson, the fire, fuelled by 80k/hr winds, changed direction and overtook them, moving at an astonishing rate of about one kilometre in 30 seconds. 

A photographic comparison of Battle River
(north of Wainwright) on June 6 (left) and September 23 (right), 2026.

Wainwright and the surrounding Municipal District have faced dry conditions this year. Two watersheds there have remained under water shortage advisories due to low flow conditions and declining soil moisture amid limited late-summer rainfall.

These conditions are not unlike ones that prevailed when wildfires destroyed much of Jasper, Slave Lake and Fort MacMurray, also in the province of Alberta in years past. 

But it's unlikely we'll ever hear either our Prime Minister or Alberta's Premier admit that manmade climate change has played a hand in this. They simply have too much invested in a petro-based future to ever admit it. 

To do so would surely be nothing short of a confession that disasters like this will only happen more often.

Alberta removes habitat protections for endangered greater sage grouse to support industrial development

 CBC News 

The Greater Sage Grouse

Fewer than 100 of 'the most endangered vertebrate species in

Canada' left in Alberta. Story here.

Exporting LNG Through Churchill Would Be A Climate Disaster

• Manitoba's Climate Action Team
• 
  
• Prime Minister Mark Carney and Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew are pushing to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Churchill by 2030. Story here.

Exporting LNG Through Churchill Would Be A Climate Disaster

Manitoba's Climate Action Team

An oil explosion, location unknown.
“People think about LNG ike propane that we all use in our backyards when we’re barbecuing.
So, the idea of a leak or spill and the impacts on the environment,
it’s not really the same level of concern.” Premier Wab Kinew

Premier Wab Kinew and his government hope to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) out of the Port of Churchill by 2030. This story explains why that's a bad idea.

The EPA Cooks the Books in Trying to Cook the Planet

Natural Resources Defence Council

The agency’s power plant rollback—right after the hottest summer on record—will raise your power bills and worsen the climate crisis. Story here.

Is Manitoba on the Right Course With its Churchill Plans?

 Manitoba's Climate Action Team

The grain terminal at Churchill. A PinP photo.

If Manitoba builds an LNG export terminal, most of the emissions from extracting, shipping, and burning fossil gas would not show up in it’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory. But the province would be directly complicit in facilitating the increased production, transportation and consumption of large volumes of fossil gas, further escalating global climate risks of catastrophic drought, wildfires, and flooding. Story here.

Exporting LNG through the Port of Churchill, Manitoba.

Manitoba's Climate Action Team

If Manitoba builds an LNG export terminal, most of the emissions from extracting, shipping, and burning fossil gas would not show up in it’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory. But the province would be directly complicit in facilitating the increased production, transportation and consumption of large volumes of fossil gas, further escalating global climate risks of catastrophic drought, wildfires, and flooding. Story here.