Saskatoon landlord says arson on vacant homes ‘running rampant’

Epic Alliance co-owner Alisa Thompson says the rash of arson fires in Saskatoon this year is something she has never seen in all her years of working in the industry.

It’s not even halfway through the year, and the Saskatoon Fire Department has responded to 50 incendiary fires, meaning blazes that were deliberately set. Last year, 44 fires were ruled incendiary.

Many of the fires this year have involved vacant and boarded-up homes, a trend Thompson says is getting worse in the core neighbourhoods.

“It’s definitely running rampant,” Thompson said. “There’s people running around and they’re gathering whatever they can grab, so leaf debris, paper, recycle bins, garbage bins (and they’re) putting them up against houses and lighting them on fire.”

Four of her vacant homes have been set on fire this year, and Thompson believes more may have gone up in smoke had it not been for the security she has hired to keep an eye on their properties.

“We have come across the piles of debris against houses,” she said. “We’re diligently cleaning yards, removing everything so that nothing could be used as an accelerant.

“We’ve also come across (homes) that weren’t ours that we called in because they were on fire.”

The company has gone one step further and started building six-foot fences around properties to reduce access.

The Saskatoon Fire Department’s assistant chief, Yvonne Raymar, has been a fire inspector for 10 years. With many of the fires in 2020 being in boarded-up, vacant homes, she said taking away the opportunity is key to prevention.

“Unfortunately, we can’t make (property owners) prevent an active arson. The one thing that property owners can do is ensure that they don’t have garbage bins. If it’s a vacant home, there’s no reason to have a bin,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter where the bins are located, they are movable. They are on wheels. So if somebody wants to use them as the combustible material to ignite, they will roll them to an opportunity of where they believe they want to start the fire.”

Thompson has asked the city to remove bins from their vacant properties, but said the request was denied due to cost. She said moving garbage pickup from alleys to the street would also help curb the problem.

Saskatoon police don’t believe the fires currently under investigation are connected. In a statement, they said they were set by different people, which is supported by the evidence they’ve gathered.

“We can offer that we don’t believe they were set with the intention of harming people,” the statement read.

The service has officers trained in cause and origin of fires, but does not have a dedicated arson unit.

Raymar says there has been no talk of bringing in extra resources to help in investigating the suspicious fires. She says the public can lend a hand in reducing the fires by reporting suspicious activity.

Thompson hopes other landlords take notice.

“Just because you own a house and you’ve thrown some boards on it, it’s not enough,” she said. “You’ve got to check the property. You’ve got to mow the grass. (You’ve) got to look after it.”

Boarded up homes

Thompson says she noticed her vacant properties being targeted more frequently last fall after a push by the Pleasant Hill neighbourhood to deal with boarded-up homes in the area. A strategy was endorsed by city council in January.

Epic Alliance manages more than 400 rental properties in the city, some of which, Thompson notes, have to be left vacant for a period of time out of necessity when tenants don’t work out.

“A lot of times when groups are evicted, it’s not uncommon they’ve left things behind — whether it’s money (or) drugs — so they’re going to try and come back for their items,” she said. “It’s too easy to kick in a door or just smash a window.

“If we’ve boarded a house, it’s to try and protect the property and allows us to monitor it even better.”

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Brady Lang