Fire officials push more flea market inspections
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A weekend fire at a Donna landmark remains under investigation, and Valley fire officials are encouraging vendors and flea market owners to be on the lookout for possible hazards.
The calls for safety come after the main building of the Don-Wes Flea Market burned down on Saturday.
RELATED: 'It's so sad': Residents react after fire destroys Don-Wes Flea Market
Fire hazards at flea markets are hard to keep track of because vendors are constantly changing, so fire officials say it's going to take all hands on deck to prevent another fire like the one at Don-Wes from happening again.
Since some flea market facilities are grandfathered in, they're not required to meet current code safety standards.
That was the case at the Don-Wes Flea Market.
“Obviously here, they've been in existence for a long time, I think it's a 100-year-old structure, parts of it,” said Hidalgo County Fire Marshal Homero Garza. “So codes are pretty much out the window.”
While indoor flea markets still exist, a lot of flea markets are mainly outdoors.
“It's an open-air environment,” Garza said. “Pretty much it's a canopy with tables set up, so there really is no code.”
Garza says the lack of codes doesn't make flea markets any less dangerous – it all depends on what they're selling.
“I do encourage our local fire marshals, our municipal fire marshals and fire inspectors to take this as an opportunity to go into their flea markets and start conducting life hazard inspections,” Garza said.
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