Fire officials investigating blaze in old Ogden ice house
Smoke rises as firefighters work at the site of a fire in the abandoned Ogden Cold Storage complex Tuesday March 10, 2015. The fire started early Tuesday, fire officials said.
Smoke rises as firefighters work at the site of a fire in the abandoned Ogden Cold Storage complex Tuesday March 10, 2015. The fire started early Tuesday, fire officials said.
Smoke rises as firefighters work at the site of a fire in the abandoned Ogden Cold Storage complex Tuesday March 10, 2015. The fire started early Tuesday, fire officials said.
Smoke rises as firefighters work at the site of a fire in the abandoned Ogden Cold Storage complex Tuesday March 10, 2015. The fire started early Tuesday, fire officials said.
Firefighters battle the flames at the Ogden Cold Storage warehouse complex in West Ogden on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Firefighters responded to a call at the abandoned warehouse at around 1:30AM and worked as the fire spread through a set of seven interconnected warehouses.
Firefighters battle the flames at the Ogden Cold Storage warehouse complex in West Ogden on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Firefighters responded to a call at the abandoned warehouse at around 1:30AM and worked as the fire spread through a set of seven interconnected warehouses.
Firefighters battle the flames at the Ogden Cold Storage warehouse complex in West Ogden on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Firefighters responded to a call at the abandoned warehouse at around 1:30AM and worked as the fire spread through a set of seven interconnected warehouses.
OGDEN — Fire officials are investigating the cause of a huge blaze early Tuesday morning in an abandoned building in west Ogden.
Crews from the Ogden and Roy fire departments responded to the fire in the former Ogden Cold Storage complex at 300 W. 24th St. The building involved is located in the Union Pacific rail yard, south of 24th Street, between the Weber River and the yard’s railroad tracks.
“This was a very large fire for us,” said Ogden Fire Deputy Chief Eric Bauman. “It was a large building, and we have extremely heavy fire damage. … You’re talking an old building with a heavy timber load. There was a lot of wood in there.”
The fire was reported at about 1:25 a.m. Tuesday by an ambulance crew returning from a call, as it drove across the 24th Street viaduct. Crew members reported seeing a “heavy black column of smoke, even though it was dark,” according to Bauman.
The first Ogden firefighters on scene were from nearby Station 4, which is just a few blocks from the area. A total of 21 firefighters from Ogden and Roy were called out, representing three ladder trucks, two engines, a paramedic rescue, an ambulance and the battalion chief, according to Bauman.
The building was engulfed in heavy smoke and flames by the time fire crews arrived. Bauman says the incident commander determined it was too dangerous to put firefighters inside the building, so they fought the fire from above, using the ladder trucks. Utility companies called to the scene determined the building had been disconnected from all gas, electrical and other services.
Bauman said crews had the blaze under control by 8 a.m. No injuries were reported.
As of late Tuesday afternoon, investigators were still waiting to get inside the building, according to Bauman. The fire compromised the building structurally, and crews were expected to tear down the east and west walls in order to make it safe for investigators to enter. Bauman said it was too early to even consider the cause of the fire suspicious.
“In terms of it being suspicious, I’m reluctant to say anything, because there are so many things that can cause a fire,” he said. “We just don’t know at this point.”
Although it was technically one building, Bauman said several additions had been made to it over the years, resulting in five or six attached structures. Most of those structures were empty, but crews were able to stop flames from engulfing an additional one that housed wooden pallets. Still, Bauman called the building “100 percent damaged.”
“I assume this whole thing will be demolished,” he said.
Union Pacific owns the building and land, according to Ogden city planning manager Greg Montgomery. In the past, UP had leased out the building, but it had been abandoned for several years.
Union Pacific spokesman Francisco J. Castillo said UP personnel also responded to the fire. He said there was no other damage to company property, other than the buildings. Damage estimates are unknown at this time.
“One freight train was delayed due to the fire,” Castillo said.
Sarah Langsdon, Special Collections curator at Weber State University, said to the best of her knowledge the building didn’t have any particular historic significance.
“It’s not like when Shupe-Williams burned,” she said, referring to the fire that destroyed the Shupe-Williams Candy Co. building just south of Union Station in Ogden, almost nine years ago to the day.
But Stephen Smith, of Ogden, called the building “extremely historic,” and in his view the Shupe-Williams building was “insignificant compared to this ice house.”
Smith, who describes himself as a local railroad historian, said the building was originally the old Pacific Fruit Express Ice House, built in the 1920s or ’30s.
The ice house was used to generate, store and distribute large quantities of ice for the refrigerated railroad cars passing through Ogden. Smith said the ice house had a storage capacity of a million pounds, and it could “ice” four 100-car trains at a time. He said the ice house used to hire Ogden High School football players and other athletes during their summer vacation to handle the 500-pound ice blocks.
“It was the last surviving, somewhat intact, ice house across America,” Smith said. “… It was one of the biggest in the U.S., and a key for Union Pacific and Southern Pacific trains. You could ice them up here, and get clear to Chicago with it.”
The Ogden ice house closed in the 1970s, when mechanical refrigerated rail cars became commonplace, according to Smith. It then served as a cold storage building until just a few years ago.
“The fire will be arson, in all likelihood,” Smith guessed. “But what may have generated the flames — a lot of it — was the ammonia in the leaky pipes. That’s very volatile.”
Ammonia was used in the ice house processes. Water was drawn from the Weber River and turned into ice in the small, low-slung building at the south end of the complex, according to Smith. The ice was then stored in the larger building.
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SEMarkSaal.