By Doug Anderson
doug@newsroom.byu.edu
The oldest building on the Ricks College campus burned to the ground Wednesday morning, Nov. 29.
Demolition crews gathered at midnight to tear down the Jacob Spori Building only to have the historic 97-year-old landmark burst into flames hours later, said Ricks College spokesman Don Sparhawk.
Sparhawk said about 60 spectators watched as a small fire eventually engulfed the roof and building. Apparently, a steel cable that was threaded throughout the building and attached to bulldozers caused friction and later sparks that started the fire.
Fire crews arrived on the scene minutes after 3 a.m. in an effort to put out the blaze, said Spencer Larsen, emergency fire chief of Rexburg-Madison County Emergency Services.
But after a first-wave effort to dowse the fire, Larsen said firefighters changed their strategy of putting out the fire to containing it, opting instead to protect the surrounding campus buildings to the east and to the west of the Spori Building.
Larsen said he made the decision to allow the partially torn-down building to burn rather than risk the lives of crew members who would have had to enter the building in order to contain it.
Instead, firefighters, demolition workers and on-lookers did little more than watch flames shoot into the air.
Larsen said the fire was impressive.
'People from 10 to 15 miles out of town could see the fire burning,' he said.
Karen Newman, a secretary in the Department of Communications that was housed in the Spori Building up until last summer, said she received a call from her husband who was a volunteer firefighter on the scene.
Newman, who lived just down the street, said she went with her son to watch the blaze.
'It was just amazing,' she said. 'We go out the door, and you can see the flames everywhere.'
The fire that consumed the Spori Building came after the beginning of what was a surprise demolition to many.
Although publicly scheduled to be torn down sometime in December, crews in charge of the demolition recommended the building be torn down at night to avoid potential safety hazards to students, Sparhawk said.
He said the decision to tear down the abandoned landmark was made hours before workers arrived on campus later that night. Sparhawk said only a limited number of people knew the demolition would proceed ahead of schedule.
He said some people were opposed to tearing down the building, but there were no formal protests.
Sparhawk said the demolition crew had no idea friction between the cables and building could be a possible fire hazard.
'I don't think anyone in their wildest dreams imagined that it could have caught on fire,' he said.
Firefighters will continue to work with clean-up crews through mid-day Thursday, Larsen said.
The Spori Building is not the first building on the Ricks College campus to be destroyed by fire, Sparhawk said. A gymnasium also scheduled to be torn down burned to the ground in 1977.
The Spori Building itself has had bouts with fires in the past. According to a brief history of the building on the Ricks College Web site, the building that was originally part of the Freemont Stake Academy caught fire in 1907, 1908 and 1912.