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3-Alarm fire burns about 20 acres near the University of Utah

Posted at 4:30 AM, Jul 06, 2018
and last updated 2018-07-06 11:59:43-04

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - Investigators are looking into what caused a grass fire near the University of Utah.

Fire crews first got wind of it around 1:30 a.m. on Friday when they received calls about some smoke and flames up in the Federal Heights area of Salt Lake City, just north of the Huntsman Cancer Institute (2000 E. Circle of Hope Drive).

Crews arrived on scene and immediately started dumping water onto the flames.

The fire was knocked down in 30 minutes and under control within an hour.

Firefighters worked in two different teams from two sides to get the flames out.

"My hope would just be that residents and people in the city and other parts of the state will just be super mindful of the fact that we have terrible conditions right now and we need everybody's help to avoid these kinds of problems," said Audra Sorensen with Salt Lake City Fire Department.

At this time, crews are guessing about 20 acres have been burned by this fire and no evacuations were made.

This fire happened within about half a mile of the Jewish Community Center and fire officials made a point that this could have turned out a lot worse than it did, had fire crews not got the fire out as quickly as they did.