Port Royal business lost in overnight fire (update: ruled accidental)

A shot of last night's fire provided by the Beaufort-Port Royal Fire Department

Updated March 23: The Island Packet has a brief report that last week's fire has been ruled accidental.

You can read the brief here.

Updated March 18: The Island Packet caught up with the shop's owners and others around town for a full roundup on the fire.

You can give that a read here.

March 17 p.m. update: A press release regarding last night's fire has been released by authorities.

There's not a whole lot of detail in the release, but it does say that about 25 firefighters from the Beaufort, Port Royal and Burton departments worked the blaze starting just before 10 p.m. 

The full press release is pasted below:

Knocking down the first major flames, area firefighters found hidden fires in a Port Royal structure’s walls that required hours of battling Wednesday night. Once the ashes cooled, fire investigators and local law officers arrived to search for clues to what started the fire.

The Town of Port Royal, City of Beaufort and Burton Fire departments responded to a structure fire at 709 Paris Avenue on Wednesday at 9:48 p.m.  The first arriving units reported smoke and flames showing from the front of the small commercial building.  Fire crews worked quickly to knock down the main body of the fire inside the structure and in the attic.

“This was a very persistent fire for a small building” said Beaufort Deputy Fire Chief Clay Scoggins.

The fire was seated deep in the exterior walls of the building.  The remaining hidden fire required the more than 25 responding career and volunteer firefighters to conduct extensive operations to extinguish the blaze.

As is the case with most structure fires in the county, the Beaufort County Fire Scene Investigation Team arrived to investigate the cause and origin of the fire.  The FSI team worked well into the night at the scene and today was working with local law enforcement to complete the investigation.  The case remains under review and no report is yet available.

Reported March 17: A Port Royal official is reporting that a Paris Avenue business was lost to a fire overnight.

Nuances, owned by Nancy Vista at 709 Paris Ave., had been open for about a year. You can read an Island Packet writeup on its opening here.

On his Facebook page, Port Royal Town Councilman Joe Lee said firefighters worked throughout the night to protect the adjoining buildings.

We'll update this as we hear and see more.

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