A fire at an abandoned yard site just south of Canora on Highway #9 has been termed ‘suspicious’ in nature.
Eric Sweeney, deputy chief of the Canora and District Fire Department said they received a call regarding the fire at 12:33 a.m. Tuesday and responded with a crew of eight to find the grass and buildings already on fire.
Given that the yard site was not lived in, and that power to the yard was shut off, there was immediately some thought the first could have started under suspicious circumstances, said fire chief Devon Sawka.
The fire, located roughly 40 kilometres north of Yorkton, was just being brought under control when the department received a second call at 1:44 to respond to a garage fire at Burgis Beach, said Sweeney.
In response to the dual fires the Rhein Fire Department was called in to carry out some mop up duties at the yard site, while Canora headed to the garage fire.
Then at 11:24 a.m. the Canora Department was again called to the yard site where fire had once again broke out.
Again the department responded with trucks and a crew of eight.
Sawka said the fire starting again did not match with what you might expect if it was a missed hot spot, and was actually in a locale that was not the way the wind was blowing if the original fire had restarted, again causing them to think the second ignition was suspicious.
On the second visit to Canora firefighters set a back fire to prevent the yard fire from getting to Highway #9, said Sweeney.
The fire would completely destroy a house, not lived in in recent years, a barn, garage and shed, plus a few acres of slough and bush grass.
The fire was deemed back under control by about 2 p.m..
While the fire was thought to have been suspicious, Sawka said further investigation into the exact cause is unlikely since little of value was destroyed.
The Burgis Beach fire was also put under control, that blaze being called in by RCMP on a regular patrol.
