Fire causes damage to kitchen, roof of Dirty Al's

An early morning fire at Dirty Al's restaurant caused damage to the kitchen and roof area of the building.

A small group of employees had arrived and were working inside the building, but it was a county park employee who saw the smoke rising from the vents on the roof and then alerted the men inside and called the fire department.

When firemen arrived at the scene, they put out the fire within a short period of time. No one was injured in the fire.

The new fire chief of South Padre Island, Burney Baskett, said he was told that employees opening the back door to go to work discovered smoke and called the fire department.

Baskett was impressed with the efficiency and professionalism of his new crew, he said.

"There's a lot of smoke damage, and water damage, too - but they got that fire under control in just minutes," he said.

Cameron County Emergency Manager Johnny Cavazos had little to add as of 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

"My fire marshal just walked in the door (in Brownsville)," he said. "He's been down there all day."

He added that no one can be sure yet, but it appears that electrical wiring in the attic crawl space may have shorted and ignited the cooking-grease saturated wood there.

"That's a very preliminary guess," he said. "We're going back tomorrow. Our investigation is far from complete. Our guess could be way off the mark. We just don't know at this point."

He added that an individual from the state fire marshal's office just happened to be vacationing on the Island, and had offered his services in the investigation.

No dollar estimates of damage are available at this time as the fire is still under investigation.