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20 cars destroyed after late-night blaze at Salt Lake airport, which is being investigated as a possible arson

(Photo courtesy of Fox 13) A fire in the early hours of June 8, 2018, destroyed 20 cars and damaged others in the Hertz parking lot at the Salt Lake City International Airport.

Firefighters are investigating an overnight fire in a rental car lot at Salt Lake City International Airport as arson.

It happened around 12:30 a.m. in a small auto lot Hertz uses to maintain its vehicles, FOX 13 reported.

Twenty rental cars were damaged or destroyed in the early Sunday morning fire.

“From the time we were dispatched to the time that we got there, was right around 3 1/2 to 4 minutes, and in that time it had probably grown to double the size,” Captain Kyle Lavender with Salt Lake City Fire Department Station No. 11 said.

The cause of the fire is a mystery for now.

“It is suspicious, these are newer vehicles,” Lavender said. “These are vehicles that are not even a year old so not a lot of reasons mechanically that this should happen.”

“We’re investigating it as though it may be an arson,” he added.

Sunday morning’s fire was a costly one. In all, the fire caused more than $500,000 worth of damage.

Investigators are in the process of reviewing surveillance footage and interviewing those who may have been around, to see if they saw anything suspicious.

Read more at Fox 13.

Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.