Dozens of vendors without jobs following swap meet fire

Dozens of vendors at the Santo Tomas Swap Meet no longer have a place to work after a fire burned down more than three rows at the venue late Saturday night.

Calexico city officials are planning an emergency meeting with vendors on how they can help them recover.

City officials hope the community can come together to lend a helping hand.

Calexico City Council Member Bill Hodge said , ” Very important to the integral community and atmosphere and commercial aspect of Calexico. So this is something that Calexico has to extend itself in goodwill.”

Hodge added that for some vendors, the swap meet was their only source of income.

“Working people that struggle to make ends meet and now they’ve lost their livelihood. We have to come up with a way to try to get them to start working. So that they can put food on the table. And they can have a good Christmas with their families also.”

All hands were on deck to take out the inferno.

Capt. Eduardo Rivera, of the Calexico Fire Department, said , ” So we did have a mutual aid response respond to our city. And all those engines did participate in the extinguishment of the fire from different degrees.”

The fire was contained within hours.

“It took approximately one hour to attack the head of the fire. About an hour to an hour and a half after that the fire was getting to the point of containment,” said Rivera.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.