{"id":72560,"date":"2017-06-14T12:04:10","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T18:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-native-restaurateur-dies-in-townhome-fire\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T18:04:10","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T18:04:10","slug":"durango-native-restaurateur-dies-in-townhome-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-native-restaurateur-dies-in-townhome-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango native, restaurateur dies in townhome fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=0ff7d58e-7781-46f9-96c1-abf6b094d276&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1998\" alt=\"Kevin Abeyta was identified by family and friends as the man who died early Wednesday in a townhome fire in Durango.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Kevin Abeyta was identified by family and friends as the man who died early Wednesday in a townhome fire in Durango.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of Facebook<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Kevin Abeyta, a life-long Durango man and co-owner of a Mexican restaurant that opened earlier this year in the Main Mall, died in Wednesday\u2019s apartment complex fire, according to family and friends gathered at Needham Elementary School.<\/p>\n<p>Abeyta, 24, attended Durango High School and Southwest Colorado Community College. He worked at Albertsons before recently opening Los Amigos Del Sur in the Main Mall with three other co-owners.<\/p>\n<p>Abeyta lived at Tercero Townhouse, 2123 West Third Ave., with his husband, Tonny Del Solar.<\/p>\n<p>Del Solar said he was too upset Wednesday to speak with The Durango Herald, but he asked Joanna Atencio, a family friend, to speak on his behalf.<\/p>\n<p>According to Atencio, Del Solar woke up to the fire, grabbed Abeyta by the hand and said, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to go. There\u2019s a fire!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They went down a flight of stairs and had exited when Abeyta said, \u201cNo, the children. The kids are in there,\u201d referring to children in another unit.<\/p>\n<p>Abeyta ran into the unit and never re-emerged, Atencio said.<\/p>\n<p>Atencio and family described Abeyta as a \u201cgenerous soul,\u201d willing to give the shirt off his back to someone struggling or money to children in need.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt just breaks my heart,\u201d Atencio said. \u201cHe\u2019s just amazing. He went back in for those kids, and Tonny wants people to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abeyta and Del Sur have been together about four years. A family member said they recently went to Las Vegas to get married. He has a large family and a lot of friends who live in the area, they said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was just a sweetheart,\u201d said Vangie Montoya, his great aunt. \u201cWe all loved him to pieces. We don\u2019t get together a whole lot, but we\u2019re always there for one another.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Abeyta\u2019s family and friends gathered Wednesday at Needham Elementary School, where Southwest Chapter of the American Red Cross provided services and hotel vouchers to residents displaced by the fire.<\/p>\n<p>The body was removed from the building Wednesday morning and an autopsy is schedule for 9 a.m. Thursday, when authorities said they expect to formally identify the man.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:shane@durangoherald.com\">shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>escapes fire, returns because of children<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,350,28,450],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-72560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-restaurant-and-catering"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72560"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=72560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}