Where there once were two shipping containers filled with seeds, tools, employee lockers, a coffee bar and other gardening supplies, there is now ash, melted plastic and two charred and warped metal husks.
A fire somehow started in one of the containers March 24, and then the pressure caused both of them to explode, sending the innards flying and setting back Wasatch Community Gardens’ Green Team Farm during the peak spring season, just before its annual plant sale fundraiser.
Loomis estimates the fire caused about $40,000 in damage, from the shipping containers themselves — which he and his crew spent the last two years upgrading and furnishing with salvaged materials to serve as his employees’ locker room and kitchen — and the valuables stored inside them, like Loomis’s tools and workers’ belongings.