CENTERVILLE -- Centerville city officials report it took nearly 1 million gallons of water to stop the fire that started Monday evening at the Colonial Building Supply store.
The fire engines used one-fifth of the city's water reserve to extinguish the flames at the four-alarm fire, said Randy Randall, of the Centerville Public Works Department.
"That's enough water to fill the building that caught fire," Randall said Wednesday.
The water usage was high as fire crews from Layton, Farmington, Kaysville, South Davis Metro Fire and Salt Lake City agencies helped contain the blaze being blamed on a roofer's torch.
The two-story lumber business building rekindled for a short time Tuesday night.
Randall said the city has seen bigger fires over the years, but the potential of the fire, with the wood supplies, demanded a quick knockdown and heavy-duty water usage.
Fire officials report that one ladder truck can use 1,000 gallons a minute; four ladder trucks and eight engines were called to the scene.
For comparison, Randall said, the normal city usage at peak summer times is 2,000 gallons a minute for the entire city.
The Colonial Building Supply fire, at peak, used 4,000 gallons a minute by all of the assembled emergency crews as they worked to halt the quickly spreading fire.
But city officials said the fire did not cause any capacity problems for city users, as the water was drained out of one of the city's six reservoirs, flung out to quench the flames and finally emptied to the city drainage system.
The reservoir was full enough so that water, with the aid of gravity, did not need to be additionally pumped to the scene. At 8.34 pounds per gallon, a million gallons weighs in at 8,340,000 pounds.
"We had a boom set up," said Randall, who pointed out that the boom filters out any debris in the water that eventually escaped to the storm drains.
Like any fire victim, Colonial owners will not be billed. But, Randall said, the one-day water usage bill for 1 million gallons would be about $1,000.
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