The history of the Mercado de la Merced dates back to 1860 as a local, but already in colonial times the neighborhood of La Merced was known as a commercial area. To this day, it still has the title of the largest retail market in the city. Full of all kinds of food, flowers, dried chilies, piñatas, it is a reference point both as a commercial point and as a tourist attraction.

Throughout its history, the Mercado de la Merced has suffered four fires of considerable size in recent times, in 1988, 1998, 2013 and 2014. The first of these fires was due to the explosion of a store that sold fireworks, but the others were caused by electrical failures.

During the night of December 24 and 25, the fifth fire occurred in Mercado de la Merced; it is suspected that it was due to similar causes. The fire was put out by the fire department in the early morning of the 25th. Unfortunately, two people died in the conflagration, apparently locals who tried to support the extinction of the fire. Also, 860 stores were affected by the incident.

The Head of Government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum visited the area and announced that the affected people will have the necessary support to recover. And that the electrical installations of the 329 public markets in the city will be checked.

On the type of reconstruction that they do will depend whether history will not continue to repeat itself or not, even more so because of such easily preventable factors.