SUGAR HOUSE, Utah — The investigation into what caused a massive fire at a Sugar House apartment building that was under construction in October of last year is complete.
Capt. Shaun Mumedy with Salt Lake City Fire says the official investigative report came out on Monday and the official cause was undetermined.
"We just didn't really have any evidence to lead us one way or the other," said Capt. Mumedy.
He says they had several areas of interest in their report.
That included space heaters on the construction site and spider junction boxes where multiple tools and equipment can be plugged into a specific area.
"They aren't necessarily suspicious by nature but we didn't have any evidence to support that those could have been a cause," said Capt. Mumedy.
Capt. Mumedy says they also looked into arson but couldn't find any evidence to support that it could be a cause of the blaze.
"It was a huge fireball and so, you know, I think it's understandable that there's not a ton of evidence left," said Shere Brunjes, owner of Sports Clips in Sugar House.
Their location in Sugar House had to close for 34 days after the fire took place, eventually reopening on November 29th.
"We're still recovering, like being closed a month, It was, it was hard on the clients too, yes, it was hard on the stylists," said Brunjes.
She says they have eight stylists who work at the Sugar House location, serving anywhere from 30 to 50 clients a day.
"I think that was the hardest, hardest part, we just, no one knew how long it was going to be until we could reopen," said Brunjes.
Landon Clark, the Sugar House Community Council Chair tells FOX 13 News that demolition on the building will continue for the next four to five weeks.
At their meeting last week, Clark says the building developers, the Lowe Property Group told them they do plan to rebuild the apartment building, which was going to be called The Residences at Sugar Alley.
"I think it goes back out to bid but they're going to use the same contractor and then about June you'll start to see it build upwards they're going to be able to keep the three levels of decking which is great," said Clark.
Clark says whenever the building is completed, it will serve as an important piece of the Sugar House community.
"Their plans to have a couple of restaurants on the bottom level, or at least one, it's a giant piece of Sugar House," said Clark.
For those, like Brunjes, she is excited about the rebuild, despite being displaced for quite some time due to the fire last year.
"What we want to know is you know, is there is there anything we can learn to have it not happen again?" said Brunjes.
Capt. Mumedy says in the report, investigators estimate that the fire caused around $59 million in damage, which was just to the apartment building itself.
He says that doesn't take into consideration the impact on citizens around the area, businesses and street closures.
