WEST JORDAN, Utah, May 5, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — Several area residents saw smoke Friday afternoon and thought it might be coming from Joel P. Jensen Middle School at 8105 S. 3200 West. It turned out to be an outbuilding on nearby private property that was burning, but firefighters weren’t taking any chances of letting the flames spread to other structures.
West Jordan Deputy Chief Reed Scharman said the blaze started at about 1 p.m., when the homeowner was in his outbuilding, hooking up a battery charger. The homeowner then went outside to clear some weeds from around the building.
“At that point, he saw smoke and attempted to go in and put the fire out himself with an extinguisher,” Scharman said. “He did sustain some minor burns on his arms, and took in a bit of smoke. He has refused treatment from us, and he seems to be doing OK.”
Scharman said fire crews arrived to find the structure fully involved. Acetylene gas and other materials inside the outbuilding were released during the fire and spread the flames, he said, but the fire was essentially contained in the structure. The only other damage he was aware of was to a travel trailer outside and a smaller outbuilding.
Scharman said a second alarm was called because of the proximity of the fire to the house. He said the primary assignment for the crew was to keep the house from burning and to keep the fire down inside the structure (that was already burning).
“When you start deploying troops to fight a fire that’s already going outside of its bounds, anything around it could become involved,” he said. “So the initial view they had was that it was going to be a really big fire, and they wanted a strong defense.”
The wind was a factor as well, because the doors of the outbuilding opened windward, and that allowed more air to fan the fire when the homeowner re-entered the building, Scharman said.
The nearby Jensen Middle School and West Jordan High School were never threatened by the fire, he said. “School was in session, nobody was outside, and we were able to clear the street.”
There were no injuries other than the minor burns sustained by the homeowner, and crews planned to be checking on him.
“A lot of people are exposed to fires and initially don’t feel as bad as they might be. And then, as time goes on, things start to swell — so we’ll make sure that he’s OK,” Scharman said.
Asked how the firefighters were doing, Scharman said, “We’re doing OK. It would be 80 degrees out today.”
He said firefighters inside their bunkers (the heavy protective gear they wear) can accelerate in temperature very quickly, so they were “rehabbing” them as quickly as possible and rotating them in and out.
The cause of the fire had not yet been determined, Scharman said. Investigators were going through the scene to try to determine what had actually taken place to start the blaze.
