Fire underneath Saskatoon’s University Bridge causes damage to sewer line

Saskatoon’s University Bridge saw a fire underneath the Spadina side, damaging a portion of a sanitary sewer line.

This is the second year in a row damage has been done to pipes beneath the bridge, even after the city put up fencing and barbed wire to prevent the public from accessing the area.

“What we’ve put in place there are intended to be a deterrent. We don’t really have any way of preventing someone where there’s a will, there’s a way,” said Brendan Lemke, the city’s director of water and waste operations.

Get breaking National news

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.

This fire is not as bad as the 2025 blaze, where the damage caused the bridge to be closed for a short time and thousands of litres of sewage to spill into the South Saskatchewan River.

“At this point, from the initial inspections that are there, it looks like it might be a fairly straightforward fix. So hopefully … similar to the last time this happened, a week is probably a reasonable timeline,” Lemke said.

All four lanes on the bridge are open. There is a restriction at the top of the bridge heading westbound.

People are being asked to zipper merge until city crews are done with the cleanup.

The city says there were no environmental impacts.

The fire department is investigating the fire.

Watch the video above for more on the University Bridge fire and how city crews are cleaning up after the damage.