A fire at the Kentucky State Fair damaged multiple booths of Lexington vendors on Friday, one vendor says.

The fire started around 3:45 a.m. in South Wing C of the Kentucky Exposition Center, according to WDRB. The Louisville news station further reported that the fire was extinguished before firefighters went inside the building, but light smoke was present in the loading dock area on the east side of the building.

A T-shirt press machine was left on overnight and started the fire, according to WLKY. The fire did not spread farther than the surrounding booths.

One of the booths impacted by the fire was Ivette Made, a Lexington-based homemade goods vendor owned by Ivette Puga. It was her first year at the fair as a vendor, and all of her inventory was destroyed in the fire from the soot, smoke and overhead sprinkler water.

“It’s very unfortunate that this happened and it worked out the way it did because (we) were on trajectory to have better sales every single day,” Puga said.

Puga said the fire started at a booth behind her spot. She was told the overhead sprinkler system did its job in preventing the fire from spreading, but it wasn’t enough to save her booth.

“They said it was quickly contained and the sprinklers worked exactly how they were supposed to work, but that didn’t prevent the soot coming to our side, the smell coming to our side, the water just making everything worse by penetrating the fabrics, all the stains,” Puga said.

Puga took down her booth from the fair, but is remaking her inventory in hopes of going back this weekend before the fair ends Sunday. Several family members have pitched in to help provide enough product for a weekend’s worth of sales.

“Even my kids are like ‘what can we do? What do we do? Lets cut elastic,’” Puga said. “We have been working and thankfully, because of family, we’re really getting everything basically up and running again.”

The fire also completely destroyed the inventory at El Gato Azul, another Lexington-based vendor whose booth was right next to Puga’s. A Facebook post from El Gato Azul says they will remake everything that was lost in the fire.

“Thank you all for all the messages, comments, calls, and supporting our small business,” El Gato Azul said in a Facebook post. “We need it now more than ever.”

Fair organizers have told Puga that the incident wouldn’t affect her chances of returning to the fair next year.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to come back next year and have a better year,” Puga said.

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