Origin of East Side blaze unknown

Investigators were trying to determine what started a blaze that gutted a two-story house Friday on Charleston's East Side.

The fire at 61 Amherst St. was reported by a neighbor at 1:36 p.m., said Mark Ruppel, a spokesman for the Charleston Fire Department.

No injuries were reported.

When the first firefighters arrived, they saw heavy flames coming from the house, Ruppel said.

A thick column of black smoke could be seen for miles away, according to several witnesses.

"These guys did an incredible job of confining the fire to this one structure," Ruppel said.

Several adjacent houses, including a multi-family apartment building, were very close to the house that was on fire, he said. Firefighters enveloped those adjacent buildings in curtains of water to prevent them from catching fire.

It took about 20 minutes to bring the fire under control, Ruppel said. The St. Andrews Fire Department, Charleston County EMS and the city police department also responded. Other local departments assisted by covering fire calls in the city.

Firefighters spent several hours putting out hot spots after the fire was brought under control. Traffic on Meeting, Nassau and Hanover streets was affected. Investigators will go in the building later to try to determine what caused the fire, Ruppel said.

"We have been told by police that they have found homeless people inside the house in the past," Ruppel said.

It was too early to tell if the fire was connected to a series of more than 80 suspicious fires in a zone around the Crosstown Expressway during the past decade.

Friday's fire was on the eastern edge of that zone, which was documented in a Post and Courier report on the arson fires this week. Unlike most of the suspicious fires, this one began in daylight.

Allyson Bird, Schuyler Kropf and Tony Bartelme contributed to this report.