Fire displaces family, causes extensive damage to 121-year-old Spanish Fork home
Jul 10, 2023, 10:08 PM | Updated: 10:22 pm
SPANISH FORK, Utah — Fire left a family displaced Sunday, while causing extensive damage to a 121-year-old home.
Crews responded just after 10 p.m. to the fire at 112 W. 200 North after the homeowner called the fire into dispatch.
Bob Beagley said he was returning home from picking up his granddaughter at her fiance’s house when the two noticed smoke in the air.
“We got back here on Main Street in Spanish Fork, turning down on 200 North, and we saw a cloud of smoke,” Beagley told KSL TV. “I said to my granddaughter, ‘I bet you that’s some firework smoke.’ And so we just kind of sloughed it off, and as we got down here and I was backing into my driveway, my granddaughter said, ‘The garage is on fire!’”
Spanish Fork home severely damaged by fire; 4 adults displaced
Beagley said his granddaughter told his wife that the house was on fire, and she and his son exited as Beagley went for the hoses in the yard.
“We tried to put it out,” Beagley said. “It just seemed to, like, go fast.”
The flames quickly extended from the garage to the main house, leaving behind considerable damage and displacing everyone.
Beagley said he and his wife were staying in a hotel while his son was staying with a friend and his granddaughter was staying with her mother.
“(It’s) very devastating and the memories especially,” Beagley said.
According to Beagley, his grandfather constructed the original parts of the house in 1902. He took over the property in 1982.
He said one of the harder parts of the situation was all the personal belongings, including family pictures, that went up in smoke.
“So from now on, we’re going to have to reminisce and maybe write them down,” Beagley said of the memories surrounding what was in the home.
Beagley said he didn’t believe the house was necessarily a total loss, but would likely require substantial reconstruction.
He expressed gratitude for the support that has surfaced since the fire.
“I think the most important thing to me is that my family is safe,” Beagley said. “What I’m taking out positive from it is my bonds with them — my family and neighbors and community members — is going to be even stronger than it has been in the past.”
