One man died after a fire and explosion at Figueroa Auto Body Collision on Gulfway Drive in Port Arthur, according to Fox 4 Beaumont. The fire began at about 6 p.m. at the paint and body shop on the 6100 block of the road.
Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Joseph Guillory II ordered an autopsy. The man’s identity had been confirmed and his family notified, but authorities had not released his name publicly, KFDM reported.
Cause remains under investigation
The Port Arthur Fire Department is investigating. Officials’ working theory is that a spark ignited a gas can inside the business, but that explanation has not been established as the cause. The available reports do not explain what produced the spark or provide further details about the events inside the shop.
A fatal explosion at an auto-body shop has also been reported elsewhere, though the circumstances are not established as similar. The Missoulian reported that an explosion at Rick’s Auto Body in Missoula on Aug. 21 killed one worker and injured another; the report excerpt does not specify the year. That separate incident is a limited point of comparison, not evidence of a broader trend, and it does not establish what happened in Port Arthur.
Port Arthur investigators have not released a final cause. The man’s name and the circumstances leading to the reported ignition remain unresolved.
