Fire consumes beloved eatery
Hyde Park — Four fire crews from Cache Valley responded early Sunday morning to a blaze that gutted the Hyde Park restaurant Juniper Inn.
The restaurant is located at 4088 N. Highway 91, and as of 4 a.m. Sunday, firefighters were still facing freezing temperatures as they put out smaller fires that continued to break through the external wall of the restaurant. No one was injured in the fire.
The workers used 15-foot pike poles to tear down the building’s facade and reach the fire. The structure had false ceilings from various renovations. This contributed to the fire’s ability to spread unseen.
Jay Downs, Smithfield fire chief, said he and 15 volunteers from his department, as well as firefighters from Logan and North Logan fire departments and the Cache County Fire District, responded to the blaze at about 12:15 a.m.
Downs said he didn’t expect to go home to his family until 4 p.m.
While firefighters worked on the ground, Assistant Cache County Fire Chief Jon Keller was up on North Logan Fire Department’s ladder truck, dousing flames from above on the extended ladder.
Keller, who has been with the Cache County Fire District for four years, was right above the smoke for no longer than 20 minutes. He said he could see the whole interior of the restaurant from his vantage point.
The Juniper Inn was burned all the way through.
Downs said he’s familiar with the restaurant, which now sports charred walls and broken windows.
“I grew up with the owners’ children,” he said. “I always liked to eat here.”
Not all of the fire crews had seasoned firefighters in their midst.
“We’ve got some young bucks out here,” Downs said. “I bet for some of them, it’s their first major structural fire.”
Firefighters salvaged as much of the structure as possible, because an investigation still had to take place, Downs said.
The state fire marshal began an investigation around 7:30 a.m. Sunday but won’t be able to determine the cause of the fire and damage totals until sometime Monday.
Even though much of the structure was damaged in the fire, Keller said, investigators can still determine its cause.
“There’s always evidence,” he said.
Investigators look for areas that are burned more deeply than others.
Downs lauded the other fire departments, as well as the Utah Department of Transportation for keeping the road plowed, the Red Cross for providing food and hot drinks for the firefighters, and even Hyde Park’s department of Public Works for increasing water flow to the fire trucks.
After the blaze was smothered, firefighters rolled up hoses and had to wade through calf-deep water in the Juniper Inn’s parking lot to get back to their trucks.
Some firefighters, after working for hours, sweating and then freezing, offered jokingly to trade clothing with bystanders.
Tracy Hoth, the owner of the restaurant, was unavailable Sunday for
comment.
Sylinda Lee, a junior majoring in health education, will miss the Juniper Inn.
“I love the Juniper Inn,” she said. “I live close enough to know it’s a gem of Cache Valley.”
–jmdo@cc.usu.edu
Hosing it down. Assistant Cache County Fire Chief Jon Keller perches atop the extended ladder of North Logan Fire Department’s truck. (Photo by Joe Dougherty)