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SALT LAKE CITY — Fifteen residents were displaced from their homes after an apartment caught fire in Salt Lake City Thursday morning, officials said.
Crews responded to the Jefferson School Apartments, 1099 S. West Temple, just before 4 a.m., according to Salt Lake City Fire Division Chief Ryan Mellor. The fire began on the third floor, but by the time firefighters arrived, the fire had progressed "significantly" with flames all the way up the side of the building, Mellor added.
Shantel Rodriguez, a resident of one of the second-floor apartments, said she and her husband were awoken about 4 a.m. after hearing banging on their front door. They at first thought someone was trying to break in, but soon saw debris start to fall from the third floor.
Evacuee describing the flames at Jefferson School apartments this morning: “They had to have been 10/15 feet above the roof it was crazy they were huge” @KSL5TVpic.twitter.com/Ve4OH9GE1e
— Felicia Martinez (@FeliciaNews) June 20, 2019
The fire completely gutted three apartment units, and a total of 12 apartments were impacted by the fire — six with minor damage and six with significant damage.
Two firefighters received minor injuries when a piece of the building's roof fell, but nobody else was injured. The Red Cross was on scene during the fire and will provide "direct financing assistance" to 12 residents displaced by the fire, according to a tweet from the Utah/Nevada Red Cross.
The fire was extinguished about two and half hours after firefighters arrived, and some residents were allowed to return to their units.
The cause of the fire has not yet been released.
Contributing: Felicia Martinez, KSL TV
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story indicated Ryan Mellor was fire chief for the Salt Lake City Fire Department. It has since been corrected to reflect that he is division chief.
