A house fire in Sutherland over the weekend has been deemed suspicious.

Crews were called out Saturday afternoon to the home on Birch Crescent, to find the back of the house completely involved in flames. No one was at the home at the time of the fire, and damages are still in the 600 thousand dollar range.

Assistant Fire Chief Dan Paulsen with Saskatoon Fire and Protective Services says the cause on other fire on the weekend at a strip mall on Avenue E is still being investigated.

"You start with all the possible causes, and once those are all ruled out then you start going to the improbable, and that's when you start moving in to a suspicious style fire. Sometimes that leads to fires that you can never determine, and others you can determine how they came together."

Paulsen says fire investigators have their work cut out for them. Not only do they investigate fires across the city, they also do fire inspections.

Paulsen says they are about 600 enforcements behind at this time.

[ED Jul 9/12]