The Saskatoon Fire Department was called out around 6 p.m. Wednesday evening to a commercial restaurant where a deep fryer had caught fire.

When fire fighters arrived to the location in the 2500 block of 8th Street East those inside were evacuating Red Lobster and a Class K fire extinguisher which is designed to extinguish grease fires was used to put the fire out. The fire was under control in under 20 minutes. Natural gas was shut off and SaskEnergy was asked to conduct an inspection to insure the utility service wasn’t damaged in the fire.

A fire investigator determined the fire originated in a deep fryer vent due to lack of cleaning the commercial cooking equipment.

As well, the special suppression system serving the commercial cooking equipment did not activate and failed to discharge extinguishing product on the fire. The fire alarm did not activate and was not activated to provide early warning to occupants and employees. No one was hurt and damage is estimated at $20,000.

A fire inspector will follow up to make sure all the deficiencies have been rectified before Red Lobster reopens.

On July 8th, Hudsons, a downtown Saskatoon pub was not evacuated and the fire alarms didn’t go off although smoke was coming from the roof as firefighters arrived.  It was determined the fire alarm system was not operational.

About 130 people were evacuated by firefighters, there was $25,000 in damage and the pub re-opened on July 11th after the Fire Inspector ensured the issues had been fixed and everything was in working order.  The fire was caused by tarring work on the roof that had taken place earlier in the day.