{"id":37097,"date":"2022-11-26T01:18:22","date_gmt":"2022-11-26T08:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-engulfs-vacant-building-in-south-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:35:31","slug":"fire-engulfs-vacant-building-in-south-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-engulfs-vacant-building-in-south-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire engulfs vacant building in south Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fire
Fire crews from Cortez, Dolores, and Lewis-Arriola battled a structure fire in south Cortez Tuesday evening. (Courtesy Cortez Fire Protection District)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Multiple fire crews responded to a suspicious structure fire Tuesday in south Cortez.<\/p>\n

The fire occurred in a vacant building that was boarded up on the southwest corner of East Seventh Street and South Ash Street, said Battalion Chief Rick Spencer, of the Cortez Fire Protection District.<\/p>\n

There were no injuries or evacuations.<\/p>\n

The building was partially engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived about 8:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Fire crews from Lewis Arriola and Dolores districts were called in for mutual aid. Fifteen firefighters were on scene, and operations lasted until 12:30 a.m. Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The cause of the fire is \u201cundetermined in cause and suspicious,\u201d Spencer said.<\/p>\n

The investigation was turned over to the Cortez Police Department, and the case is ongoing, said Lt. Andy Brock on Friday.<\/p>\n

\"Fire
Fire engulfed a vacant building on the corner of East Seventh Street and North Ash in south Cortez Tuesday evening. (Courtesy Cortez Fire Protection District)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A fire in a vacant building in south Cortez burned through the roof and was responded to by multiple area fire agencies. (Courtesy Cortez Fire Protection District)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Neighbors reported flames coming from the structure and said the building has been unoccupied for a while. Fire crews reacted with an \u201caggressive attack from the exterior,\u201d Spencer said. \u201cIt was intense fire behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

The structure sustained heavy damage, he said.<\/p>\n

A priority was to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby structures. Interior fire conditions made it too dangerous to enter the building.<\/p>\n

Fire engines from Cortez, Dolores and Lewis-Arriola were on scene, along with a Cortez rescue truck. The Cortez Police Department and Southwest Health System ambulance also responded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

injuries reported; cause is suspicious and under investigation, officials said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83552,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37097\/revisions\/83552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37097"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}