The start of the 2026-27 school year is in question for more than 1,000 Saskatoon students after a massive blaze at Bethlehem High School.<\/p>\n
The fire late Friday night tore through the portable classrooms that were under construction and being attached to the building in the 100 block of Bowlt Crescent.<\/p>\n
According to a letter sent from Bethlehem principal Shelda Hanlan Stroh to the school community, emergency crews \u201cresponded swiftly, and while the fire was successfully extinguished, the new portable classrooms sustained significant damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanlan Stroh, who also noted water and smoke damage in other areas, said the school and surrounding grounds were closed so investigators could complete their work, and the full impact could be assessed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the start of the school year just a few weeks away, we know you may have questions about what this means for school startup. At this stage, we are waiting on confirmed details from the fire department and emergency personnel before final decisions are made,\u201d Hanlan Stroh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, with patience and grace, we will navigate the days ahead and ensure our students and staff are supported.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026-27 school year is scheduled to begin Sept. 2. Bethlehem\u2019s enrolment as of Sept. 30, 2025 was 1,439.<\/p>\n
Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools thanked fire crews and emergency services for their response, and said it will \u201cprovide updates to students and staff as to how the fire may affect the start of school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vicki Mowat, the NDP MLA for Saskatoon Fairview, also thanked fire crews for their response.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents, teachers and school staff are in my thoughts,\u201d Mowat said in a Facebook post.<\/p>\n
Fire crews responded on Friday just after 10:30 p.m., and immediately observed \u201cheavy smoke and large flames coming from a construction area attached to the school,\u201d according to Saskatoon Fire Department in a news release.<\/p>\n
Fire crews advanced multiple hose lines in their attempt to extinguish the blaze, before fire command called for a second alarm \u2014 bringing another apparatus and more firefighters to the scene.<\/p>\n
As crews set up two ladder trucks, firefighters \u201centered the school to look for fire extension and search for people inside,\u201d SFD said.<\/p>\n
By the early-morning hours of Saturday, the fire had been completely extinguished, according to SFD, and an investigator was on scene \u201cto conduct an examination to identify the cause, origin and damage estimate.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the City of Saskatoon, the Shaw Centre civic facility \u2014 which sits in between Bethlehem High School and Tommy Douglas Collegiate \u2014 was not affected by the fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The start of the 2026-27 school year is in question for more than 1,000 Saskatoon students after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[110886,153,155,154,110888,110889,110884,110885,110887],"class_list":["post-261908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-110886","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-category-local-news","tag-category-saskatchewan-news","tag-saskatoon-fire-department","tag-saskatoon-police-service","tag-the-star-phoenix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}