Fire at vacant house ruled accidental
Another Jack Grover-owned property burns, this time due to wiring failure
A house fire on Avenue F South started due to an electrical wiring failure and has been ruled accidental.
The Saskatoon Fire Department responded to a 911 report of smoke coming from a home at 326 Ave. F South at 7:20 a.m. Saturday.
When the first crew arrived at the scene firefighters could see smoke and flames at the back of the home.
The house had been boarded up and appeared unoccupied, according to a fire department news release. The residence had previously been occupied by MaryAnn McLeod and her son Jonathan — who had been evicted by the property owner Jack Grover earlier this month after Saskatoon Health Region inspectors deemed the residence to be unfit for human occupation.
Reached by phone Saturday afternoon, Mary-Ann said she heard about the fire earlier in the morning, but thought it was a joke until a reporter called. Told what happened, she responded by saying, “That’s not good.”
Mary-Ann said she and Jonathan had been concerned about the possibility of a fire during the five months they lived in the Avenue F South home’s secondary suite, and that she is glad no one was injured during the overnight blaze.
“I’m thankful the whole family got out of there when we were able to,” Mary-Ann said, referring to their eviction from the house earlier this month.
When crews began fighting the fire they focused their first attack on the exterior of the house, then moved to the interior and searched the home to make sure no one was inside.
No one was injured in the blaze. Damages are estimated at $150,000.
According to the Saskatoon fire department, the investigator was unable to find the exact cause for why the electrical wiring was compromised but found no other heat sources that could have started the fire.
Grover’s properties have been involved in dozens of fires in the past, including a 2012 blaze on Avenue D North that killed a 60-yearold man. In 2006, Grover was sentenced to one year in jail after being convicted of obstruction of justice, a charge stemming from his attempt to alter smoke detector inspection records following a separate fire that killed a threeyear-old girl and her infant sister.
When the StarPhoenix reached Grover Saturday afternoon, he said that the fire was “very upsetting” because “everything was good” at the house, which he has owned for 20 years, when it was closed up earlier this month.
He said the authorities told him to do “a number of things” to improve the property, and that he was planning on doing electrical work but the fire interrupted those plans.
Asked whether the overnight blaze fits into a larger pattern of fires at his properties, Grover said “there is no pattern.”