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Last updateFri, 22 Jul 2016 8am

Potential disaster averted as fire breaks out in city center market

Thanks to the swift action of a night watchman, a fire Sunday evening in downtown Guadalajara’s Mercado Alcalde only affected 68 vendor spaces in the popular covered market – 14 percent of the total.

Fire Department officials say the entire market could have burned down had the employee not quickly grabbed  extinguishers to douse the flames prior to the arrival of firefighters.

The Guadalajara and Zapopan fire departments teamed up to put out the blaze within half an hour of arriving at the scene.

Guadalajara fire and civil protection chief Felipe de Jesús López Sahagún said the blaze was probably caused by a short circuit in a fruit and vegetable stand.

Parts of the covered market, which occupies an entire block at Angulo and Liceo, reopened to the public Tuesday.  Some vendors, however, were counting the cost of loosing merchandize of up to 150,000 pesos in value.

Guadalajara city hall immediately announced a emergency funding program to help vendors with severe losses.

After taking office last year, Guadalajara Mayor Enrique Alfaro promised to undertake a complete rehabilitation of all 80 markets in the municipality. Opposition councilors say this has not been followed through and claim the deficiencies in the Alcalde market were well documented, including many examples of dangerous electrical wiring.

Héctor Zepeda, president of the Jalisco College of Civil Engineers, said this week that a study done two years ago revealed that 80 percent of Guadalajara’s municipal markets were in sub-standard condition.

The Alcalde fire is the second major blaze at a covered market  in just over two years. The Corona market was raised to the ground and rebuilt after being devastated by a fire in  May 2104.

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