Woman Who Accidentally Started Downtown Fire Is Homeless Veteran

The homeless woman living in her van inside the Cortez building garage, who investigators say started a fire Monday night is a military veteran.

A Fire Department Spokesman identified her as 57-year old Queen Astro Martin. John Concha said Martin showed investigators her military ID.

Concha said Martin had paid the monthly fee to park her van inside the building garage and was living there. She was trying to fix a propane heater, when the propane leaked out, and in seconds, engulfed her van and two other cars in flames.

She managed to crawl out of the car, but suffered second degree burns on her wrists and flash burns on her face.

“Just evacuating is very stressful when you’re having a fire so for her to be able to evacuate during that situation is very amazing…she’s very lucky”, said Concha.

Martin was referred to the Red Cross, who then took her to the Salvation Army for shelter. She arrived there at about 3am, said, John Martin, director of the Salvation Army branch in El Paso.

“Because of her schedule today, we have not been able to meet with her, so we don’t know the background of her situation yet, how long she had been there, we do know that we were able to provide her immediate assistance

we were able to provide her some clothing, get her a safe place to stay, get her a roof over her head and breakfast this morning”, said Martin.

The director also said the woman had left the shelter early this morning, citing a busy schedule, and told them she’d be back in the evening to officially check in. Martin was not at the shelter when an ABC-7 crew stopped by.

John Martin, the Director of the Salvation Army, said this woman’s situation is just an example of the homeless crisis in El Paso.

“We have 1,400 homeless people in El Paso, and those are not the individuals that you think about, the ones that are in the street corner asking for a dollar or two. These are families. Just two days ago, as an example we had a family of 5 that were living in their car at the parking lot at a Wal-Mart”.

He said that with the influx of military families, Juarez families, and the recession, housing has gotten more expensive and harder to obtain.

Martin urged for people to donate to the shelter of their choice, saying they’re all at or beyond capacity.