Photo: Mary Richards | KSL Newsradio
DRAPER, Utah– A deadly house fire is under investigation in a log home off 13800 South near 500 East.
Fire crews say a woman died in the log home after she couldn’t get out. A man, woman, and their two children escaped, but one of those children is badly burned.
“This was a very active scene right from the start and our first responding personnel, both police and fire, did an excellent job working to the best of their abilities to try and make sure all of those occupants were accounted for,” said Draper Fire Chief Clint Smith.
A police officer and a firefighter had to be transported to the hospital with heat exhaustion and overexertion.
“We have this high pressure that’s sitting over us that doesn’t allow for the smoke really to escape the area very well, it just hampered the efforts of those first arriving police officers,” said Chief Smith.
The crews had a lot of trouble getting to the home, because of major road construction and closures on 13800 South, and because the home is off a private dirt access road in between other homes and trees.
The fire was reported at 12:45 AM. Several crews remained on scene for hours afterward. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Neighbor Jenny Orgill pushed her way through the trees to see the home.
“It was all lit up, all lit up, and I just knew,” she said.
She believes her friend, the dad’s mom and children’s grandmother, woke up the family so they could get out, but then died in the flames.
Orgill went around to find the family members and says the youngest child had severe burns over several areas of his body.
“Horrible, horrible, horrible to hear a 6-year-old in so much pain with burns.”
She went up to visit him this morning at the University of Utah Burn Unit. Fire crews had said he was flown to the hospital in critical condition.