Beaufort police spotted smoke coming from local downtown restaurant, fire officials say

When smoke was spotted coming from a downtown Beaufort restaurant early Sunday morning, Beaufort Police Department officers who saw it called on firefighters to help check it out, according to a Beaufort-Port Royal Fire Department news release.

Beaufort officers saw smoke coming from the side of Hearth Wood Fired Pizza on Bay Street around 2 a.m., according to the release. Firefighters arrived and discovered the smoke was coming from a vent, not the building itself.

A restaurant manager let firefighters inside where they found wood in the restaurant's oven that was already set up for Sunday which was smoldering from being inside the still-hot oven. It was producing smoke but no flames, according to the release. That extra smoke was being pushed out through the ventilation system into the alley beside the business.

“During normal operations, the fire in the oven is flaming and hot, creating very little smoke so passersby never even notice anything more than a faint wood fire odor," Acting Battalion Chief Lt. Joshua Doud said. "However, tonight due to the smoldering wood and a lack of oxygen in the oven, incomplete combustion was occurring causing much more than normal smoke to come from the vent. As soon as we moved the steel plate that seals the oven a rush of air entered the oven, the wood ignited, burned clean, and was consumed rapidly. The oven was then shut back down for the evening.”

Fire Chief Reece Bertholf praised the observant officers.

“Everything worked exactly like it is supposed to,” he said. “Our police officers who are very familiar with the normal state of things on Bay Street found something out of the ordinary and called it in immediately. Our officers are an integral component of our public safety system in Beaufort and everyone performed flawlessly in what thankfully turned out to be a minor situation.”

Firefighters checked the roof to make sure everything was safe and Bay Street was shut down for about an hour.

Beaufort County EMS and the Burton Fire District both responded to help Beaufort officers and firefighters.

This story was originally published May 27, 2018 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Beaufort police spotted smoke coming from local downtown restaurant, fire officials say."