SUGAR HOUSE, Utah — Nearby businesses are impacted and some residents are not allowed to return to their homes due to a structure fire in Sugar House that still has not been put out.
The Salt Lake City Fire Department, in a recent statement, will be keeping the evacuation order for those residents and businesses throughout the night.
Sugar House Fire Update #2
— Salt Lake City Fire Department (@slcfire) October 27, 2022
Affected residents and businesses will remain evacuated overnight. Highland Dr. from 2100 S to Sugarmont Dr. to remain closed for demolition and fire suppression efforts. More info and next update will be provided around 10:00 am Friday morning.
Crews continue battling a fire that started Tuesday night from a large apartment building under construction. Officials say crews have begun demolishing the structure while the cause is being investigated.
All the while flames and smoke can still be seen in the surrounding area.
According to Salt Lake City Fire Department Captain Shaun Mumedy, they are walking through units to make sure they are safe to live in.
“That’s the insulation material and the rubber membrane that’s used for the roofing surface tends to spread out and creates kind of a smoldering plastic which continues to just smolder for quite some time," said Mumedy. "So that’s kind of what we’re dealing with now trying to mitigate a lot of the smoke and fumes in the area."
Road closures are still in effect, with businesses closest to the structure closed until further notice.
According to nearby business Redmond Farm Kitchen worker Renee Foster, seeing a giant flame throughout the day can impact doing business.
“But it just impacted all of us as a community because there’s this big fire, you’re walking home at night, see big flames and you’re like what’s going on, so it impacted all of us,” said Foster.
“It's been kind of crazy. We had to close down yesterday because of the fire across the street – it was smoky and hazy in here,” she said.
The store and restaurant, which usually closes around 8 p.m., instead closed at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday because it wasn’t safe for their staff or customers.
“I was driving home last night and I could see the building was still burning, there was smoke coming out,” said John Hartvigsen. “I could smell the smoke, and that continued when I arrived at my house even though we’re on the other side of the freeway, the gully, this smell of smoke was strong, and I couldn’t believe it.”
The Sugarmont and Vue apartments were evacuated the night of the fire and people are gradually coming back into their homes.
“We do have a plan in place, we’re going through each of those apartments that were affected and ideally tonight if everything goes well," said Mumedy. "We should have most of those people back into their apartments tonight if they’re able to do so."
But there are still some apartments damaged by the fire that can’t be occupied yet. Officials said Red Cross is not on site anymore but can help people who need it.
“Due to the size of this fire and the proximity of these other apartment buildings, this was an excellent save,” said Mumedy. “Getting people in those other apartment buildings out of there and notified as far as what was going on, you’re only looking at a few feet between another entire apartment building on both sides of the structure."
"So we would consider it a pretty big success,” he said.
