Cause of fire at former Hidalgo County jail in Edinburg still undetermined nearly three years later

Anyone who has ever driven S. Closner knows the old lockup at 3101 S. Closner — the Hidalgo County jail that stopped holding inmates long ago and has spent years working quietly as a county warehouse. On Dec. 21, 2023, it caught fire, sending smoke over a block in the middle of Edinburg. The flames were contained and no one was hurt, but nearly three years later neither the city nor the county has announced a cause, and Hidalgo County has not told Edinburg exactly which departments' archived documents and surplus property were kept inside.

From lockup to storage

On the same boulevard as the Museum of South Texas History — which preserves the historic 1910 Hidalgo County Jail at 200 N. Closner Boulevard — sits the newer lockup, empty of inmates since around 2003, when the county's adult detention center opened at 701 E. El Cibolo Road. Since then, Hidalgo County has used the S. Closner building as storage: archived documents and surplus property belonging to multiple county departments.

The building was unoccupied when the fire broke out. The Edinburg Fire Department was among the agencies that responded, and the county's press-release archive lists the incident under a plain title: "Fire at Hidalgo County Storage Site Contained."

Two offices, one open case

The cause of the fire remains under joint investigation by the City of Edinburg and the Hidalgo County Fire Marshal's Office. As of the initial report, the extent of the damage and the departments affected were still being assessed. The Hidalgo County Fire Marshal's Office handles fire investigations and arson investigation; Edinburg's Fire Prevention division provides fire-prevention, inspection and investigation services for the city.

An answer for the block

For the people who live and work around S. Closner, a decades-old county lockup run as a warehouse caught fire in the middle of town, and nearly three years later the joint inquiry is still open. When that City of Edinburg and Hidalgo County investigation concludes, the county owes the block a plain, public answer about what was inside that building and why it burned.