House fire follows man's arrest

MIDVALE — First the renter was arrested. Then his house caught fire.

Now, police and fire investigators want to know if the two incidents are related.

About 6:15 a.m. Tuesday, Taylorsville police detective Shannon Bennett and his partner went to a house near 455 E. Greenwood Ave. (7500 South) to serve an arrest warrant on one of the residents in connection with a fraud case. J. Lee "Gus" Wood, 47, was taken into custody without incident.

"It was nothing out of the ordinary. It was a clear-cut warrant," Bennett said.

While Bennett and his partner were sitting in their patrol car parked in front of the house finishing some paperwork before transporting the man to jail, they received a call from emergency dispatchers. The dispatchers said they had just received a 911 call from someone inside the same house, reporting it was on fire, Bennett said.

"We got out of the car, and sure enough, the house is on fire," he said.

Wood's roommate evacuated the house without injury. She told KSL-TV that the timing of the arrest and the fire was purely coincidence and that the fire started in a crawl space.

But Midvale Fire Chief Stephen Higgs said the origin of the fire is still under investigation.

"It is suspicious," he said, while noting the timing of the arrest and the fire would certainly be an "interesting coincidence."

Investigators believe the fire started somewhere in a second-floor bedroom, he said. The old two-story structure had many void spaces due to years of remodeling and reconstruction.

"It was a very, very difficult fire to fight," he said.

The combination of combustible materials, including old wood and plaster, combined with fire burning in the many spaces of the house, forced crews to fight the blaze in a defensive mode, Higgs said. Because of the way the house was built, it took several hours to get the fire completely out.

"We had to chase the fire and dig it out," he said.

Wood and a woman were renting the house. The structure is considered a total loss, Higgs said.

Wood was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of forgery, identity fraud and theft by deception. He also had outstanding warrants for theft and concealing his identity. Police believe Wood tried to forge another person's check, using that person's ID, at a furniture store in Taylorsville, according to jail documents.

e-mail: preavy@desnews.com