SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Nov. 7, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — Salt Lake City fire crews are on the scene of a structure fire Thursday evening.
The incident is at 763 W. Genesse St., which is just northeast of the International Peace Gardens, Salt Lake City Fire Department tweeted at 7 p.m.
SLCFD Captain Adam Archuleta told Gephardt Daily the department received multiple calls of smoke and flames showing in the area.
“When we arrived we were able to establish there were multiple fires within a small region, they were at that point just located in some outbuildings,” Archuleta said. “Because there were multiple structures that were nearby we upgraded the assignment and asked for more resources. The contents of the outbuildings, they are small storage units, approximately half a dozen of them, they are between the two structures.”
He said within the outbuildings there are multiple items stored and some of those items are propane tanks. Archuleta said the tanks caused a number of explosions.
“At this point it’s pointing to the contents of those outbuildings caused those explosions,” he said. “The two most difficult portions of this particular firefight were one, access, because of location, the close proximity to these outbuildings have to the other structures next to it made it very difficult to navigate, we literally had to drag the handlines just on foot without being able to use the multiple assignments to help us move those around. We also had powerlines that were active, and there were downed lines in multiple areas where we were fighting the fire.
Archuleta said it’s not clear at this stage whether the downed power lines were a result of the fire, but it’s likely they were, because of the heat they were exposed to.
He said there were approximately 25 firefighters on scene within seven minutes, and it took less than 20 minutes to get the fire under control.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Archuleta said the time of the night worked in crews’ favor because residents were awake and so quickly reported the blaze. He said there is also a fire house just two blocks away.
He said the damage estimate is unclear at this time.
Gephardt Daily will have more on this developing story as information is made available.
