WAINWRIGHT, Alta.—Ken Flood was doing yard work Saturday when the first ambulances rolled in.
asserted
ambulances → do → work
One of his dogwood trees is dying.
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One → die → trees
He was stripping twigs from its berried branches, preparing to chip them all the next day.
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He → strip → them
Flood lives across the street from the only hospital in Wainwright, Alta., on the high Prairies, halfway between Edmonton and Saskatoon.
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Flood → live → Edmonton
He’s an ex-military man, with ex-military bearing.
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He → ’ → bearing
He still works in the warehouse on CFB Wainwright, the military facility on the edge of town that was once home to one of the largest captive buffalo herds in the world.
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that → work → world
Flood doesn’t mind living so close to the hospital.
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Flood → mind → hospital
With a decent lob, he could probably peg the emergency department doors with an apple.
uncertain
he → peg → apple
The ambulances in Wainwright usually come quietly, and one at a time.
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ambulances → come → time
That’s why Flood knew something was different Saturday; something was very wrong.
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something → ’ → ?
The ambulance traffic didn’t stop.
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traffic → stop → ?
For hours and hours they raced along his narrow street.
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they → race → street
“From our front window, I counted 11 there at one point,” Flood said Sunday, leaning on the fence in his front garden.
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Flood → count → garden
“That’s not counting the ones that were on the other side, between the hospital and the high school.
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that → count → hospital
They had ambulances from everywhere.
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They → have → ambulances
It’s hard to get your mind around the horror of what happened in Wainwright Saturday.
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what → ’ → Wainwright
We’re used to fires in this country.
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We → ’re → country
But wildfires usually burn buildings, not people.
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wildfires → burn → buildings
Ninety thousand people were evacuated.
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people → evacuate → ?
Twenty-four hundred buildings were destroyed.
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buildings → destroy → ?
Only two people died, in a car crash, not from the flames.
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people → die → flames
The fire that broke out on the training ground at CFB Wainwright during a live fire exercise killed four Canadian soldiers: Sgt. Morgan Wong from Edmonton, Pte. Aidan Goulding from North Vancouver, Pte. Shaun Farrell from Prince Albert, Sask., and Pte. Hayden Lykkemark from Langley, B.C.
Thirty-nine more were injured, including 19 critically.
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nine → break → 19
Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party and the local member of Parliament, told reporters in Wainwright Sunday evening that some of them were likely injured trying to save their friends.
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some → tell → friends
“Based on stories that I’ve already heard, there are acts of courage that are almost unimaginable,” he said.
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he → base → courage
“People who ran toward rather than away from the danger, and are now paying a cruel price, fighting for their lives in hospitals.”
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who → run → hospitals
The initial cause of the fire remained unknown Sunday night.
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cause → remain → fire
A bizarre and devastating wind swept suddenly through much of Alberta Saturday afternoon.
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wind → sweep → Alberta
It was strong enough to tip semi-trucks on the highway between Edmonton and Calgary.
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It → tip → Edmonton
On the Alberta legislature grounds, it forced separatists rallying ahead of Monday’s referendum to delay their demonstration by more than an hour, lest their flags blow away.
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flags → force → hour
On CFB Wainwright, the winds whipped a fire in the dry prairie grass out of control, driving it toward the training soldiers at astonishing speeds.
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winds → whip → speeds
“This was uncommon, rapid, and I certainly hadn’t seen anything like it,” Maj.-Gen. Wade Rutland told reporters in Edmonton.
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Rutland → see → Edmonton
“It is not normal for a fire to move a kilometre in 30, 60 seconds.”
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fire → move → seconds
On Sunday afternoon, a small fire continued to burn south of Wainwright.
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fire → continue → Wainwright
Thin plumes of white smoke hung over a section of the road just east of the CFB training grounds.
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plumes → hang → grounds
On an acreage nearby, local fire trucks rolled over the black grass toward the remaining flames.
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trucks → roll → flames
The soft crackle of a live fire could be heard from a nearby copse of trees.
uncertain
crackle → hear → trees
Poilievre was speaking, along with local leaders, in front of the town hall, where a plaque pays tribute to the clock tower that survived the Great Fire of 1929, when almost all of Wainwright’s downtown burned to the ground.
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all → speak → ground
But what happened Saturday was different.
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happened → happen → ?
The devastation will be measured this year not in structures — in wooden beams, barns, businesses and homes — but in flesh and bone, in the living and the dead, in the bodies of the young Canadians so grievously damaged and the lives of the four that were consumed.
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that → measure → four
The Aporia
