Nearby business on alert after repeated fires at South Central recycling plants

Repeated fires at recycling plants in south-central El Paso have one nearby business on alert after two massive fires broke out this week.

On Tuesday, two fires happened at PCM and Master Fibers Incorporated located at Paisano and Coles.

An employee of La Tachuela fire shop described the moment he became aware of the fire.

“The boxes they have there, one of the tires blew up. That’s when I noticed, I heard the bang and I looked and it was already on fire,” said employee Gerardo Gonzalez.

Gonzalez added their shop is lucky the smoke did not go directly towards their business.

“It’s kinda dangerous because we have so much flammable stuff here so it could be a lot bigger.”

As we reported, large fires have occurred at the PCM Recycling Plant in 2019, 2021 and 2022.

The manager of the shop, Eduardo Reyes, said the El Paso Fire Department gives them certain precautions to follow to avoid fires starting at their shop, however, he said he is unsure of the type of preventive measures PCM has to follow.

Reyes said that despite the repeated fire, for now, they do not have plans to move locations.

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