Officials have preliminarily determined that arson was not to blame for a fire that completely destroyed the Don-Wes Flea Market in Donna on Saturday, though the investigation remains ongoing.
Instead, investigators suspect that an electrical issue sparked the fire that took nearly seven hours to extinguish.
“With the statements that we’ve gotten, it could have been an electrical short of some sort, but I can’t tell you with 100% certainty,” Hidalgo County Fire Marshal Homero Garza said Tuesday.
But investigating the cause has been made more difficult as a result of actions that fire crews had to take to ensure their safety as they battled the blaze.
“We’re not certain by any stretch of the imagination because, unfortunately, during the firefighting activities, they (firefighters) had to bring down part of the building because it was a collapse (hazard),” Garza said.
Just before 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, the Donna Fire Department received a call about a fire at the popular indoor flea market that has straddled the city limits between Donna and Weslaco for the better part of a century.
The first firefighters arrived on the scene just four minutes later.
But, as with the massive conflagration that destroyed Matt’s Cash & Carry at the beginning of this year, crews soon realized the Don-Wes fire would take significant time and resources to put out.
Nearly 70 firefighters from 11 different fire departments responded to the blaze. They came from as far away as Mission, Elsa, Edinburg and Mercedes.
Officials declared the fire out just after 8 p.m.
The Weslaco Fire Department deployed firefighters, as well as one of the department’s more unique apparatus, the AmBus — a passenger bus converted to mass-casualty medical response center on wheels.
Weslaco Fire Chief Antonio “Tony” Lopez explained how the AmBus and its 15-patient capacity became a crucial component of fighting the Don-Wes fire in the middle of a sweltering heat wave.
“It was hot. It was about 103 degrees out there,” Lopez said.
That kind of atmospheric heat, combined with the heat from the fire, can put firefighters at risk of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, or fatigue-related injuries, Lopez explained. As a result, crews must constantly be rotated on and off actively fighting the fire.
“We want to make sure that we have medical support as well for the firefighters. Because, typically, a firefighter is going to be fighting fire in those conditions for about 20 to 30 minutes and we have to get them out,” Lopez said.
Strong winds of up to 20 mph also made fighting the fire more difficult, Lopez said.
The fire broke out during the flea market’s off-season, which — to the fire marshal — was a sort of silver lining since it meant fewer people were on site.
“In some way, we’re fortunate that it happened during this time when the occupancy of the building is way less than during the wintertime when the Winter Texans are here,” Garza said.
“If it had been during the wintertime, we would have had a serious situation,” he said, referring to the number of people who could have been at risk of injury had the flea market been more fully occupied.
Just nine vendors were at the flea market when it went up in flames, Garza said.
One of those vendors, a woman, sustained burns to approximately 14% of her body and was airlifted to a San Antonio burn unit where she has since received treatment.
“She underwent surgery yesterday and we hear that she is doing well, which I am very happy that she’s doing good,” Garza said.
Both Garza and Lopez lauded the Rio Grande Valley firefighting community for responding so quickly to the blaze.
So many departments offered mutual aid that Donna Fire Chief David Simmons was able to get further assistance when a grass fire cropped up on the other side of town while his entire force was engaged at the Don-Wes fire, Lopez explained.
“We had an Elsa chief at the command post and he said, ‘Don’t worry, chief. … Elsa will take it for you,’” Lopez said.
The so-called “Heart of the Valley” is so thankful for the assistance Simmons and his department received that the Donna City Council plans to formally recognize those fire departments during a city council meeting next week.
The county fire marshal is equally thankful.
“For me, I’m proud of the work that these men and women do day in and day out,” Garza said.
