A downtown Saskatoon bus depot was temporarily closed on Sunday after a suspicious item was found there earlier in the day.

Fire crews and a hazardous materials team were called shortly before 1 p.m. CST about a "potential bomb scare" at the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) depot on the 200 block of Pacific Avenue, the fire department said in a news release.

The depot was cordoned off after staff saw a metal cylinder in a trolley that morning, according to police.

"It looks like an aluminum and cast-iron cylinder threaded on one end with Teflon tape on it. The other end has a couple of wires coming out of the top," Insp. Rick Penny said at the scene.

Penny said it could be some kind of hydraulic pressure sensor, but he added that it's just a guess based on a visual inspection of the item.

There were no tags on the cylinder, and therefore no indication of how it ended up at the bus depot, he added.

The bus depot and an office building behind it were evacuated as a precautionary measure.

The fire and hazmat crews remained on standby until the police service's bomb disposal unit gave the all-clear. The incident was over by around 3:30 p.m., according to fire officials.

Penny said the suspicious item will be placed in a blast container and taken outside the city, where it will be detonated.

Police later confirmed that the object was not an explosive.

With files from Radio-Canada's Genevieve Garon