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WEST VALLEY CITY — Fire ripped through a West Valley business early Sunday.
West Valley Fire Battalion Chief Mark Ownsbey said the structure is considered a total loss and damages could "reach several million dollars."
The fire was reported about 2:30 a.m. at Nemko, 1940 W. Alexander St. (2420 South). Ownsbey said an on-call employee received an alert that a motion detector inside the building had been triggered.
"When he got there, the fire was already through the roof on almost half the building," he said.
By the time fire crews were notified and arrived, two-thirds of the structure was already gone, Ownsbey said. Heavy fire was coming from the roof, doors and windows. Part of the roof had collapsed, according to the fire department. Firefighters immediately went into a defensive mode, meaning all they could do was put water on it from the outside and prevent the fire from spreading to other structures.
It took crews several hours to extinguish the fire.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation Sunday. Although the building was almost fully engulfed by the time the fire was discovered, Ownsbey does not believe it burned that quickly.
"We think that it didn't go up super quick. It was just really delayed in being reported," he said.
The building is in an industrial area that doesn't get a lot of traffic at 2:30 a.m. on a Sunday, Ownsbey noted. He said the structure was home to an electronic testing company.
