Fire officials: Downtown fire could have been much worse

The owner of a Downtown El Paso perfume shop is praising the work of El Paso firefighters.

They were able to contain a fire in a clothing store right next to that perfume shop before it spread to other businesses. But their blessing is another business owner’s misfortune. The store that went up in flames was in pretty bad shape Tuesday morning.

Firefighters say Monday night’s fire at La Mexicanita, a clothing store in the 600 block of South El Paso Street, could have been much worse. Business owners in the vicinity of the fire and the fire department all agree it’s “amazing” the fire did not spread all the way down the street and wipe out every business on the block.

And that’s because right next door to La Mexicanita is Alex’s Perfumeria. Inside are thousands of bottles of perfume and cologne on the shelves, all containing alcohol, which could have accelerated the fire greatly.

The owner’s son told ABC-7 that the fire department told him, had his perfume store caught fire, the entire block of stores — another dozen or so businesses in each direction — could have burned to the ground.

Fire officials, still working to determine the cause of the fire, confirmed that their focus was keeping the fire from spreading to the flammable perfumes and into other businesses that share common walls down the block from the perfume store.

“Since it’s flammable, it’s very dangerous,” said David Renteria, the son of the owner of Alex’s Perfumeria. “If they fire would have gotten in here, probably the whole block would have burned down. That’s what the fire department stated.”

Businesses on both sides of La Mexicanita were closed Tuesday, including Alex’s Perfumeria, which had to repair a door that fire fighters were forced to break down. Many of the items in nearby stores smelled of smoke and likely have smoke damage.

Damage to La Mexicanita was estimated at $250,000. The cause of the fire is still being investigated, according to fire officials, although Renteria said he heard faulty wiring could be to blame.

Fire officials said the building has been inspected the past three years and did not have any fire code violations. City officials told us the building had no code violations either.

Fire officials told ABC-7 that 16 units and 40 firefighters were on the scene Monday night.