North Salt Lake fire leaves titanium smoldering

NORTH SALT LAKE — A building fire Wednesday had the fire department going back to the books.

Firefighters received a call around noon Wednesday to 1001 N. Main and arrived to find a 40-by-80-foot shed on fire, said South Davis Metro Fire Chief Jim Rampton. They were able to put out the fire in the building within 30 minutes, but they had to dig deeper for solutions to stop the burning barrels full of titanium shavings.

"The building fire is out, but we're still dealing with smoldering barrels of titanium metal, which is not something you encounter every day," he said. "What the literature suggests now is that we bury or smother these barrels with dry sand."

This unique problem was created by the "hobby" of the building's owner, who owns welding equipment and uses the equipment to salvage precious metals, Rampton said.

"He said he was doing some welding outside of the building and then took the metal inside the building and used a grinder," he said. "We believe it was the sparks off the welder."

No one was injured by the fire, but wind carried the flames outside the shed, damaging some equipment in the yard, which was full of old cars and equipment such as forklifts.

Rampton said firefighters were able to keep the fire from spreading to any of the surrounding homes.

— Emiley Morgan