Saskatoon fire under University Bridge damages sewer line again as crews respond

Firefighters in Saskatoon responded to a small human caused fire under the University Bridge on Sunday that damaged city sewer infrastructure.

According to a report by CTV News, the Saskatoon Fire Department was called to the scene just before 4:00PM on March 8 after smoke was seen rising from an archway beneath the west side of the bridge.

Crews used a ground ladder to reach the area and ran a hose line to extinguish the fire.

City officials say the blaze damaged a sanitary sewer line that runs through the bridge structure. Heat from the fire melted the pipe, which eventually ruptured.

Brendon Lemke, Director of Water and Waste with the City of Saskatoon, explained how quickly heat can spread during such incidents.

“If anybody put plastic near or on a stove element, it doesn’t take a lot of heat to start deforming the plastic and then once that starts to happen, it can fairly quickly get out of control,” Lemke told CTV News.

“We don’t really have any way of preventing someone. Where there’s a will, there’s a way is certainly what we’re seeing,” Lemke said.