El Paso’s Most Destructive Fires – Demons, Dumpsters & Lightning

Downtown was the scene of another big fire yesterday that blanketed a portion of Downtown and Sunset Heights in a thick, noxious cloud of smoke.

A dumpster fire near S. El Paso Street and Overland spread to a nearby building and destroyed the J & J Shoe warehouse. A second fire started nearby but was handled by the El Paso Fire Department quickly.

The J & J fire took around 50 firefighters to extinguish.

This isn't the first fire to bring a massive EPFD response to the downtown area.

In February of 2022, the DeSoto hotel fire took 70 firefighters to extinguish.

Despite a lengthy investigation, the cause of the DeSoto fire was never established.

However, there is a "demonic conspiracy theory" about this one.

In 2012, a fire destroyed the 130 year old First National Bank building located ... then ... at the intersection of San Antonio and El Paso, across from the Paso Del Norte.

That location is now part of a parking garage.

In December of 2021, a total of 7 residential and business fires occurred around El Paso in a single weekend.

Among those was a warehouse fire, on Mills, that took 50 firefighters about 20 hours to contain.

In terms of acreage burned, wildfires on the Franklin Mountains have probably burned the largest amounts of land in the 915.

Twice, in the late 80's, the Franklin Mountains caught fire due to ... I think ... lightning strikes and for several days, the northeast face of the Franklins burned..

In daylight, the smoke obscured the mountain. At night, it looked like lave running down the side of a volcano.

Bright lines of yellow and red that inched toward the area around the southern edge of Franklin Mountains State Park and the homes above Magnetic.

Smaller wildfires have burned on the mountain as recently as 2016.