SALT LAKE CITY — The popular Fear Factory attraction has been scaring up a good time as a staple in Salt Lake City for years, while its main factory building, in which thousands visit each fall, has been around since the 1800s.
Six buildings make up the attraction's massive facility, which includes underground passages.
Raw video below shows fire near Fear Factory in Salt Lake City:
On Wednesday, a grass fire quickly spread near the historic property, with flames eventually destroying an outbuilding, but only causing minor damage to the surrounding structures.
“The space essentially is now crumbled. It’s going to be a small loss," shared Fear Factory general manager Spencer Terry. "The nice thing is that our staff that was here, all three of them responded quickly, and they were able to help the fire department get in as quickly as possible, which I think mitigated having further loss.”
The Salt Lake City Fire Department shared how important it is to be aware of fire risks, especially during wildland fire season.
“[Fires] can definitely happen anywhere. You’re going to want to take extra precautions in really dense areas that have dense shrubbery, dense trees, grass. The closer together things they are, the bigger the wildfire risk,” explained Hannah Yull with the Salt Lake City Fire Department.
The cause of the Fear Factor fire remains under investigation, but Terry said they're lucky that the main building, props and costumes were untouched.
“I think 99.9% of the factory, if we were to open tomorrow, we could,” he said.
The attraction has time to decide whether they’ll rebuild the crumbled outbuilding before opening for the season in September. But with the support and outreach from the community, Terry believes the staff and spirits inside Fear Factory will be ready come opening day.
“We’ve had a lightning strike here, we’ve had an earthquake here, now we’ve had a fire, the entire place was flooded with water yesterday. So it’s been really interesting see the factory come alive in its own way," he said, "and it has a really strong heart, and the staff and the rest of us, we’re just going to keep on rocking.”
