Fire destroys Provo meat processing plant; causes smoke damage in two other businesses
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- Ford’s Locker is pictured after a fire on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Provo.
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- Ford’s Locker is pictured after a fire on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Provo.
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- Ford’s Locker is pictured after a fire on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Provo.
A fire broke out at a commercial building at 500 W. and 820 North in Provo at 11:47 p.m. Monday night, destroying a meat processing plant and causing damage to two other businesses.
Provo Fire Department spokesperson Jeanie Atherton told the Daily Herald all five city fire stations responded to the blaze and got it under control within an hour, but Ford’s Meat Locker sustained significant fire damage and will have to be rebuilt.
Firefighters, who managed to keep the exterior structure of the building intact, spent the early morning hours identifying hot spots to ensure the fire would not rekindle so the two other businesses in the commercial building were protected, Atherton said.
Those businesses, Nova Ink, a screen printing shop, and GT Consecionario, a car dealership, sustained water and smoke damage, but a brick partition wall separating them from the meat locker kept the flames out.
Atherton said the department remains in the early stages of investigation to determine what started the fire.
GT Consecionario manager Ivan Orellana told the Daily Herald the fire occurred when nobody was in the building, which he was was fortunate because he estimates seven people work in the meat plant, along with five people in his business and three to four people at Nova Ink.
Orellana said he lives just a block away from the building and when he got a call from the landlord around midnight about the fire, he arrived quickly at the scene.
“It took like three minutes until I started seeing the fire going up, and it was a pretty sad situation,” he said.
He confirmed that his store experienced water damage and odor damage and said they are forced to temporarily shut down.
“I’ve heard this phrase a lot of times, but you never think this is going to happen to you. You see this on the news and that’s it,” Orellana said. “But now, we are affected by it. It may have happened just because of electrical problems — something out of our hands — and I started thinking, okay, we have a team of five people and we’re not going to be able to work here anymore until they let us in.”
He also expressed concern for the meat locker owner and employees, many of whom he sees on a daily basis.
“These guys are not going to be able to go back to work until they figure out what happened, and they might need to open a new business,” Orellana said. “Between the owner’s family and the workers, I believe it might be eight to 10 families affected, plus Nova Ink … there’s around of 16 families affected by the fire. And close to Christmas, it’s supposed to be a season that you’re always happy or trying to help people. But it’s something that’s out of our hands, we cannot control it.”
