SOUTH SALT LAKE (AP) -- Federal investigators arrived Sunday to determine the cause of a six-alarm industrial fire that burned through a stockyard of paper products.
Authorities said Friday's fire was suspicious but that they weren't ready to draw a connection to other recent fires and acts of vandalism linked to environmental extremists at Brigham Young University and a lumberyard in West Jordan.
Fire Chief Steve Foote said the fire at Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. was the largest he ever fought, consuming 2 million gallons of water and still smoldering. It burned stocks of paper bags for concrete, horse feed and other animal food.
Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said a team of 18 fire engineers, chemists, explosives experts and other trained investigators will sift through the fire for clues to its origin.
Mangan called it an unusual national response for a commercial fire. It destroyed an estimated $4 million in paper stocks along with electrical and other equipment.
Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. turned surveillance tapes over to investigators.
The blaze was spotted about 7:10 p.m. Friday by a fire-engine crew at a nearby station. A dozen fire engines and 140 firefighters were called to battle the flames.
The paper plant is one of 260 operated by Smurfit-Stone across the country. The company employees 38,600 workers, according to its Web site.
