I received the following email from Maynard Morris about the 223 fire. During 223's D&RGW career, it survived two fires (Salida roundhouse and Gunnison roundhouse). How ironic that it seems to have survived a third fire.
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The Shupp Williams candy factory building was at least 100 years old. It was a large brick four story building that has been out of use for some time.
There have been a lot of dicussions lately with what to do with it since somehow Ogden City owned it. A musuem group wanted to make a musuem out of it but the city just wanted them to go away. All a matter of money. At
about 2100, the build alarm was activated and the building was checked out from the outside with no easily visible entry points noted. The building sets next to a flop house and transients are a real problem in the area. No
one went inside to check out the alarm. About 30 minutes later the fire alarms started going off and the Fire department responded. Someone made the decision to let the building burn and the Fire department pulled back for a perimeter protection. Behind the building on the West side we had a fenced in compound with 223 and three railcars inside. The building turned
into an inferno since nothing was being done to control the burn.
Initially, there was a fire hose in the back spraying down the railroad equipment but then the buildings across the street were being threatened. The rear hose was shut down and moved to the front or side. The following
is conjecture. It was at this time the flying sparks set the caboose on fire. This then burned and set a boxcar on fire that was coupled to it. The boxcar had a metal roof so it was immune from sparks from the top. The metal top is tilted away from the fire which seems to indicate the car burned initially from the side away from the building fire. Another car, a
gondola burned only on the end next to the boxcar. It was on another set of tracks. The side of this car facing the building was not scourched so the danger was not radient heat but flying embers from the timbers in the candy
factory. I won't know about 223 untill I can get into our compound. But I suspect most of the heat went right over the engine and since all wood had been removed from the engine, burning embers had little effect on the steel
boiler.
