UTAH FIREWATCH

Off-duty firefighter saved stranger’s home during brush fire, Layton resident says

Jul 13, 2024, 1:49 AM

LAYTON — A Layton man is grateful after he said an off-duty firefighter saved the man’s home from a fast-burning brush fire that broke out Friday afternoon.

The fire sparked a power outage, stopped FrontRunner in its tracks, and snarled traffic around Interstate 15 and Layton Parkway.

Brian Hodson said he was inside his home and had no idea that just feet from his backyard, a large brush fire was spreading fast until a man and woman began frantically banging on his door as hard as they could.

“They’re like, ‘Your backyard is on fire! Like, you need to get out of the house, like get your kids if they’re in there,'” Hodson recounted.

He grabbed his dog and ran out. He said that as he evacuated, the man and woman ran toward the flames behind his house. Hodson would find out that the man was an off-duty firefighter, and he and the woman happened to be nearby when they saw smoke and rushed over.

“They came out immediately, and luckily [the man] grabbed … the sprinkler hoses and started washing everything down,” Hodson said. He said he could see flames in his backyard, and the couple was trying to stop the fire from making it the home.

“It was pretty terrifying,” Hodson said.

Layton City Fire Battalion Chief Jason Cook said the brush blaze began somewhere near the houses and spread “quite extensively and rather quickly, given the temperatures and the extremes today.”

“It did get into some rather large grasses and some tall trees over there, some good fuels, which allowed it to … grow quite rapidly,” he said.

Embers flew over the train tracks, Cook explained, starting up a second fire with dramatically tall flames that chewed through grass toward the Interstate 15 southbound onramp at Layton Parkway.

The fire halted the FrontRunner train, closed the onramp, and caused a traffic jam. It also torched power lines along the way, temporarily knocking out electricity to the area.

The main concern, though, was saving structures.

“Fortunately, we were able to keep it out of the two or three homes closest to where the fire started,” Cook said. “We do have a couple sheds and a child’s kind of playground that was minimally involved in the fire.”

Cook said they are investigating what caused the fire.

Hodson said if the off-duty firefighter and woman hadn’t seen the smoke, his house could have gone up in flames just a few minutes later.

“Luckily, he was able to create like a barrier up in front of the house, so the house never actually even got any damage on it,” he said.

The fire may have scorched Hodson’s fence and backyard, but it also ignited gratitude.

“Like literal moments, I could have been trapped in the house instead of safely on the outside where it was,” Hodson said. “So really … I owe them a huge thank you for being the saviors of the day.”

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Off-duty firefighter saved stranger’s home during brush fire, Layton resident says