Regina police report surge in arson cases

There has been a significant increase in arson fires in the Queen City, and police are working to address the issue.

Crime statistics released by the Regina Police Service for April show 73 arson incidents in that month. In March, only 29 cases of arson were reported.

“The research that we found is majority are to garbage and trash bins,” said Police Chief Farooq Sheikh.

Sheikh described the rise as “significant.”

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The city saw a total of 144 arsons in the first four months of 2024, an increase of 69 per cent over the 59 arson incidents reported in the same period in 2023.

Sheikh said there needs to be a collaborative effort to address the issue.

“We need to work with the city, with fire, and with the public to look at  ways to reduce opportunities, because a lot of those to the garbage bins are crimes of opportunities.”

He said potential solutions – such as adding video surveillance in high-risk areas – will be determined based on the location of the fires.

“If the cause is because there is no police presence, then we need to look at that,” said Sheikh.

“If the cause is because there is no CCTV, we need to look at that.”

Sheikh stressed that police cannot solve the problem on their own.

“We have to come together in collaboration with our partners,” he said “It’s something that we need to do and something that we need to improve upon, between us all, to reduce those fires in particular.”

But despite calling for a collaborative approach, Sheikh seemed confident that police will be able to get the number of arson incidents down.

“Whenever we have had significant arson offenses involving crimes to properties such as homes (or) churches, we’ve had good success rates solving those and apprehending defenders,” the police chief said.