A fire that began with light smoke ballooned into a four-alarm blaze Friday, ripping through the top floor of a Midvale apartment complex and displacing hundreds of residents.

Utah artist Britt Baird woke to the sound of the fire alarm around 8 a.m. From her third-floor apartment, she could see smoke rising from the floor above. She and her partner grabbed their dogs, Molly and Maia, and their purses before heading to Petco for dog food, assuming they would be back home later that day.

“We just never thought it would get as big as it did,” Baird said Friday afternoon from her mother-in-law’s home in Provo, where she had brought the two dogs.

The 30-year-old artist has spent years working to turn her art into a full-time career. She creates book art for plus-size-positive authors, sells stickers and prints online and at local markets, and plans to sell her art at FanX, the Salt Lake City comic and pop culture convention at the end of September.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it anymore because all of my stickers that I ordered for it, all of my prints I had ordered, are all up in my apartment,” Baird said.

Even if flames never reached her unit, Baird worries smoke and water damage could destroy much of her art and belongings.

“I just keep making lists in my head of, like, all of the things that I’ll no longer have with me,” Baird said. “For my career, but also, like, my favorite clothes, all the ways that I have expressed myself, are just gone.”

Firefighters responded to the North Union Apartments, 942 E. North Union Ave., around 7:50 a.m., said Nate Cochran, a spokesperson for Unified Fire Authority.

When crews arrived, they found light smoke coming from the roof and fourth floor — the building’s top level — but no visible flames, Cochran said. Over the next several hours, however, the fire intensified, eventually growing into a four-alarm blaze that drew eight fire crews that were still dumping water on the flames late Friday afternoon.

All 223 apartments in the complex were evacuated, Cochran said. The American Red Cross of Utah opened a temporary shelter at the north end of Hillcrest High School for displaced residents, but the school lost air conditioning, he said.

The Red Cross said in a post on X it is opening an emergency shelter Friday evening at Union Middle School.

“The shelter is available for anyone displaced by the fire and offers a safe place to stay overnight, along with meals, water, emotional support and access to Red Cross disaster assistance,” the post reads.

Investigators have not yet determined what caused the fire. Cochran said crews initially investigated whether a trash chute was involved, but ruled that out.