5th Canadian soldier dies weeks after fire on grenade launcher range

A fifth Canadian soldier has died from injuries suffered when a wind-driven grass fire swept through troops during a military training exercise last month, the Canadian Armed Forces said Saturday.

Pvt. William Douglas Dal Bianco died Friday at a hospital in Ontario, where he had been receiving treatment since the Oct. 17 fire at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta, the military said.

About 84 soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, were conducting attack training when winds pushed flames from a grass fire toward the troops at the base southeast of Edmonton. It occurred on a grenade launcher range, officials said last month.

The military said Saturday that 24 soldiers remain hospitalized.

“Private Dal Bianco and his fellow soldiers were training to defend Canada,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a social media post. “With their bright futures still before them, they chose to safeguard ours. That is service.”

The other soldiers killed were Pvt. Shaun Farrell, 23, of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; Pvt. Aidan Goulding, 23, of North Vancouver, British Columbia; Pvt. Hayden Lykkemark, 19, of Langley, British Columbia; and Sgt. Morgan Wong, 26, of Edmonton.

Military police are investigating the fire, while a separate military board of inquiry will examine the circumstances of the tragedy and recommend measures to prevent similar incidents.

Maj. Gen. Wade Rutland said that military officials knew about the fire for hours but believed it was contained and allowed training to continue before winds suddenly shifted.

Carney has called the fire one of the worst peacetime tragedies for Canada’s military on Canadian soil. 

“We will get the answers to what caused this terrible tragedy, as expeditiously and transparently as necessary,” Carney told reporters last month.