Evacuees, Red Cross Seek Help After Apartment Fire

More than a dozen Central El Paso families will be homeless for the holidays following an apartment fire at their complex on the 1000 block of Elm Street.

Emily Mendez is one of 42 residents at the Five Points apartment complex who were evacuated Saturday just before 7 a.m. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, the apartment’s gonna burn down!'” she said. “We just put clothes on and we just left running”.

Mendez was able to escape with her purse and the clothes on her back. She and her family are now staying at a motel, the cost of which the Red Cross of El Paso is helping to cover.

At least nine of the 17 displaced families will also need help with temporary housing. “For each of those families here in the holidays, it’s tragic. It’s heartbreaking to have to go through something like this,” said Mark Matthys, the Executive Director of El Paso’s Red Cross. “They have to fall back on emergency services, which is why the Red Cross exists and why we rely so much from our donors and our volunteers.”

But the Red Cross itself is in need of help this holiday season. Other fires throughout the borderland Saturday have spread their resources thin. According to a media release, an estimated $11,000 is needed now to meet the disaster relief needs of the families served by the Red Cross.

Mendez said she’s grateful for the Red Cross’s help. She said the management team at Five Points has also stepped up to help evacuees. “They told us they were going to try to find another apartment where we can move in and (pay) the same thing until they fix these apartments.”

Investigators said the apartment complex did not have working smoke detectors at the time. Oscar Reyes, a man at the scene who said he is one of the managers at Five Points, told ABC-7 that an unattended car battery was to blame for the fire.

Reyes said the car battery belonged to a tenant who went out of town for the weekend. The tenant allegedly left a car battery close to a heater in his upstairs apartment when it caught fire. Officials will only confirm the flames broke out in an unoccupied apartment on the second floor.

Though Mendez is homeless for the holidays, she said it could have been much worse. Nobody was seriously hurt in the fire. “Everybody is safe. That’s the good thing.”

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