Such substances are used on apartment-building roofs all over Salt Lake City but melt and burn slowly, Mumedy said. The roof of the Sugar Alley development’s south wing is still smoldering because of the material used to construct it: thick, plastic foam covered with a thin layer of tar, topped with a rubber membrane. “You just have a collapse of a structure, and then there’s just this dense pile of debris, and it just continues to smolder for a long time.”
The north wing burned before largely falling in on itself in a way that was “very similar to 9/11,” Mumedy said. The Residences at Sugar Alley is still smoldering in part because of the way a section of the building collapsed, Mumedy said. (Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Partially collapsed scaffolding after a fire in a partially constructed apartment complex continues to burn in Sugar House, Thursday, Oct.
