A vehicle fire in the underground parking lot at Midtown Plaza forced the mall to be evacuated around 5:10 p.m. Saturday.
According to Saskatoon Fire when they got to the parking lot they found a car with flames coming out of the engine compartment.
It was brought under control within 20 minutes but heavy smoke forced the parking lot and mall to be evacuated.
“Obviously it was a little chaotic for everyone involved, especially for the guy who owns the car,” said General Manager of Midtown Plaza Terry Napper.
“I don’t expect many changes to the evacuation plan, but you have to regroup and do a postmortem on everything.”
One of the mall security officers that assisted with the evacuation was evaluated by M.D. Ambulance at the scene for smoke inhalation.
Napper said his engineering team was able to shutdown the ventilation, so smoke didn’t spread throughout the mall.
“I don’t have an exact figure on damage, but I expect it to be very small,” he said. “All we have left is clean up of the parkade and some small smoke damage possibly.”
The mall remained closed for the night, as crews continued to investigate but mall workers were allowed back inside just after 6 p.m.
Vehicle fire in Midtown Plaza parkade. @SaskatoonFire on scene. pic.twitter.com/ZBj44m2Yfj
— Bryn Levy (@BrynLevy) February 19, 2017
Still no word on what caused the blaze.
“Firefighters haven’t told us yet on exactly what happened,” Napper said.
– With files from Ryan Brandt, JT Marshall
Vehicle fire forced evacuation of Midtown Plaza. Am told stores won’t be re-opening tonite (closing time 7pm anyways). Back to normal tmrw. pic.twitter.com/IggkzAbAmp
— Bryn Levy (@BrynLevy) February 19, 2017