OGDEN, Utah — Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski is calling it a troubling trend after a third structure fire to hit the city in the span of just one week came late Friday at a construction site along 18th Street.
The under-construction three-story apartment building was destroyed in an incident that followed one on August 3, where $1.6 million in damages were reported at a townhome under construction, while on Tuesday, more than a million dollars in damage was estimated at a different fire at an apartment building on 32nd Street.
While the numbers seem alarming, not everyone is concerned.
“Have there been more fires than usual? Probably, maybe a handful more fires this year, but it’s not a drastic difference from years before," explained Ogden Fire Chief Mike Slater.
The fire chief said the difference is that larger structures are being built.
“We reached out to 84 contractors within the city, we’ve been in touch with 72, to tell them what our expectations are,” Slater said, adding that the department wants to be proactive, so they’re now focusing on security at construction sites.
Building deemed total loss after two-alarm fire damages Ogden construction site:
Slater noted that developers have taken preventive measures at the site on 18th Street.
“The one on 18th Street was fenced. They had a camera on site. They ran a standpipe inside the building, in case we had a smaller fire on site, it gave us water access to the structure,” the chief explained.
The 18th Street is the fourth fire at a construction site in Ogden over the past few years. Of those, three were in their "tinder phase," where the unoccupied structure is just wood and is primed to burn.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is taking part in the investigation into the fire at the 18th Street site, and Slater said officials are not ruling out the possibility that the fires were human-caused.
“People aren’t out of the woods," he said. "We’ll continue to work on this and … if it was an arson, we’ll find out who did it.”
Slater assured residents that public safety is the top priority as they try to determine exactly what’s happened over the past week.
