Saskatoon Fire Department releases cause of the fire.
The Saskatoon Fire Department has now released the official cause of the fire at our Circle Drive location — a faulty e-bike battery that was brought in by a customer for testing. The fire originated in our battery testing room before spreading throughout the building.
Describing the situation that began late on Friday and continued well into Saturday, Dwayne Jobson, acting deputy chief of operations for the Saskatoon Fire Department, said firefighters first tried to enter the building at 710 Circle Drive East just after 10 p.m.
“The entire building was charged with heavy black smoke,” he said, which meant the firefighters had to work from outside.
The smoke would have made it “easy for crews to maybe get disorientated inside and get trapped, or put themselves into a bad situation,” Jobson explained.
He said that call was made after the firefighters confirmed there was no one inside the building. No injuries to civilians or firefighters were reported.
Jobson said it’s also not out of the ordinary for structure fires of this scale to keep crews working for more than 12 hours, and noted the store’s contents – including electronics and batteries – weren’t a factor in the fire’s duration.
“I don’t believe it had an impact at all,” he said.
Jobson said part of the reason the blaze lasted so long was because firefighters couldn’t enter the building, making it hard to find and extinguish hot spots.
“You’ll extinguish it, then it kind of rekindles again,” Jobson explained.
It took a total of 60 Saskatoon firefighters more than 12 hours to extinguish the blaze. Crews worked through the night, bringing the flames under control at 2:19 p.m. on Saturday, March 14. A fire investigator was on the scene by 3 p.m.
Through it all, the Saskatoon Fire Department showed up with courage, professionalism, and compassion — working through the night and into the next day to do everything they could. We are deeply grateful.
To our incredible Saskatoon community and clients from near and far — thank you for the outpouring of love and support. Bolt is rebuilding, and we will be back at our flagship Circle Drive location. We are actively looking for a temporary home in the north end of Saskatoon and will keep everyone in the loop as plans are finalized.
In the meantime, our friendly team is ready to serve you at three convenient locations:
📍 1-960 Attridge Drive — (306) 664-9700
📍 10-2404 8th Street E — (306) 955-6400
📍 40-3026 Meadows Parkway — (306) 249-4460
🕘 Mon–Fri: 9AM–9PM | Sat–Sun: 10AM–6PM
Thank you for choosing Bolt. 💙
