WASHINGTON TERRACE, UTAH — A month after a devastating fire in Washington Terrace, the cause of the fire is still under investigation. But as the state fire investigator explained, this is a complex investigation with many moving parts, during a tough fire season.
The Adams Fire started in Washington Terrace on July 27th. A man was burned in the fire and died from his injuries.
Ryan Riddle is the Statewide Fire Trespass Coordinator and Investigator for the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands. He works with multiple agencies and people to coordinate these investigations into figuring out how and where fires start. But that’s not where his job ends.
"Our portion of origin and cause determination is just a very small piece of a larger puzzle,” Riddle explained. “And so we'll be working with other investigators. We may have experts from different fields coming in and analyzing, potential equipment or different types of evidence that may have been collected at the scene."
Riddle said this year has been especially difficult to investigate fires, in addition to resources being stretched very thin. "Because a lot of those fuels that we're typically using to determine cause are burning up, and so we don't have a lot of on-the-ground evidence to look at,” he explained.
Kris Tomlinson lives in Washington Terrace. The fire came right up to her backyard and even destroyed some of her plants. She had to evacuate, but her home was not damaged.
"It was scary, smoky, lot of hoses everywhere, firemen everywhere,” Tomlinson said.
Now, it’s been a month since the fire. "I think things are back to normal,” she said. “It’s on our minds because it’s still dry back there, new weeds are growing again but it’s something we think about if we see smoke, we're looking around our house to make sure it’s not our yard again."
Her next-door neighbor passed away in the fire. "It was tragic, really sad,” she said.
As this fire season continues, Riddle wants to remind people to be careful because even a single spark can be dangerous.
"Most of our fires this year have been caused, just a lot of roadside starts, carelessness with dragging chains, blown tires, vehicle-related type ignitions. We've also seen a fair amount of camping and shooting,” he said.
