An early morning fire that reduced a historic hotel to rubble last week in Leask may have been deliberately ignited, police say.
“We’re certainly investigating the fire as suspicious, absolutely,” Blaine Lake RCMP Sgt. John Redlich said Tuesday.
Redlich declined to discuss details of the investigation and would not say whether any suspects have been identified.
“We’ve spoken to numerous witnesses and any information that we are provided by those witnesses -and whether they’re from Leask or not doesn’t really matter -we’re following up on it,” he said.
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“As you can well imagine, the loss of a historic building in a town is certainly a fairly big deal.”
Redlich said investigators would like to hear from anyone with information about the fire, which broke out in the northeast corner of the hotel around 2: 30 a.m. on Feb. 9 and quickly engulfed the building.
The owner, who lived there, was asleep inside and was the only occupant of the hotel at the time. He escaped without injury after smoke detectors went off.
Fire departments from Leask, Blaine Lake and Shellbrook worked through the night and into the following day to keep the flames from spreading to nearby properties.
The Leask Hotel was the largest and oldest building in the town of about 400 people, located 100 kilometres north of Saskatoon. Built the same year the town was incorporated, it was due to mark its 100th anniversary next year.
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