Police investigate after body found in house fire
Blaze may have been burning for some time before being noticed, official says
The Saskatoon police major crime unit is investigating a suspicious death after a body was found following an early-morning house fire on the city’s west side.
Saskatoon fire received a call at 2:31 a.m. about smoke in the area of the 200 block of Avenue F North in Caswell Hill. Responding firefighters saw smoke was coming from the rear of a home and called for backup. Trucks from three stations responded to the scene, and crews had the fire under control in 12 minutes, according to a press release.
Assistant fire chief Anthony Tataryn told reporters at a news conference Friday morning that no one else was in the home when fire crews arrived. He said the body was that of an adult, but would not say if it was a man or a woman.
According to the Saskatoon Police Service, a positive identification of the deceased had not been made as of Friday morning and investigators with the major crime unit were working with the provincial coroner and the forensic identification unit.
Tataryn said damage to the home was “fairly extensive” and it appeared the fire had been burning inside the home for a long period of time before it was noticed.
“No windows or doors were open ... so a fire has a tendency to kind of smother itself down and wait for the introduction of oxygen,” he said. “A fire can go undetected for several hours before it actually breaches the structure.”
The cause of the blaze remains under investigation. There was no immediate damage estimate.