It sounded like a bomb went off upstairs.”

Ronney Im, homeowner

One resource suggested for planning for such events can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CFiL0FAggg.

A Cottage Grove house in the northwest end of the Pine Summit neighborhood was struck by lightning on Wednesday, July 31 around 5:55 p.m. The strike pierced the roof of the home at 6596 Clover Circle S and ignited a fire in the attic.
A neighbor saw the lightning strike and called 911, and then went over to inform the homeowner, Ronney Im, that his roof was on fire and smoking. Quick fire and police response, coupled with continued heavy rain from the storm, allowed the fire to be contained to the attic where it was quickly extinguished, ultimately saving the home.
Im was the only person in the house at the time, and neither he nor responders were injured in the event. He had just finished his work for the day in an upstairs office and had gone downstairs to watch the Olympics on television prior to the time of the lightning strike, which immediately caused the power to go out upstairs along with the television and internet in the home.
“It sounded like a bomb went off upstairs,” said Im, and he felt the concussion through the house. “I’ve never experienced a loud boom like that in my life. I didn’t think that it had hit my house, I just thought that it was really close.”
With the power out upstairs, Im was on his way down to the basement to check the breakers when he heard the doorbell ringing several times in a row. It was the neighbor who had come by to inform him of what had happened to his roof.
Im then called 911. They confirmed another call had already come in from the neighbor, trucks were on the way, and he was asked to go outside the home and wait for fire and police to arrive. Cottage Grove Police were first on the scene, followed by a total of seven fire engines from Cottage Grove, St. Paul Park, Newport, Woodbury, Lake Elmo, Hastings, and Inver Grove Heights.
When fire fighters arrived, the roof was smoking and flames on the roof were visible from the street. They gained entrance to the home and went in through the front door with a fire hose. There was no smoke visible on the ground floor, but having seen the damage from the outside, they hauled the hose upstairs to the second floor, where Im showed them the access panel to the attic. They entered the attic, discovering some of the rafters were still on fire and began extinguishing the flames with the hose. The interior of the home took on some significant water damage, both from the rain coming through the new hole in the roof, as well as the fire hose used in the attic.
Cottage Grove Fire Chief Jon Pritchard expressed that it’s very fortunate that the city has a full-time fire department. When alerted of an emergency situation, fire fighters are on hand at the station and can be in their trucks and on their way to the scene at a moment’s notice.
“We’re moving right away,” Pritchard said. “Instead of waiting 15-20 minutes for the traditional volunteer model, we’re out the door and we can get there quickly.”
According to Pritchard, following a six-to-seven-minute response time, the fire upstairs was able to be completely contained within the attic and was extinguished in about seven minutes from the time of arrival by first responders. Teams stayed on scene for about an hour afterward, checking through the house to make sure there was no other damage that needed to be addressed.
“Lightning’s tricky, because essentially once that lightning hits the house anywhere, then that electricity tries to find ground to travel through the house to get into the soil to ground itself,” said Pritchard. “In those fires we’re very careful. We really thoroughly check the house.”
Using modern thermal imaging cameras, the fire department is able to scan a structure for any remaining hot spots behind the walls. Not only does this make their work more targeted and efficient, it cuts down on potential damage to the property itself from having to break through walls to see what’s happening behind them.
“A lot of that time after the fire was put out was just being careful to make sure there weren’t other fires or other significant damage in the house,” said Pritchard.
Determining the cause of a fire is never taken lightly, and investigations can take a long time in some cases. According to Pritchard, in the case of lightning strikes, some things that are taken into account are whether there was significant lightning activity in the area, homeowner and neighbor eyewitness accounts, as well as visual damage to the immediate area that corroborates that the fire was caused by a lightning strike.
“Typically, with lightning, wherever it strikes there’s a pretty significant damage to that immediate area, so when we put all those things together, we are very confident to be able to say that it was caused by lightning,” Pritchard added. “It’s a very deliberate process to get there, and it’s a combination of what we see, what’s reported, and then what was going on when the fire started.
Pritchard said that while lightning strikes on homes are certainly not common, they do happen a few times a year on average in our community. Sometimes they can just do minor damage, perhaps just popping the breakers, and other times they can cause devastating damage if response isn’t readily available.
“It can be very hard to predict what’s going to happen, but it is something that does happen, enough that we can call it a frequent cause of fire.”
Both Im and Pritchard considered the fire response in this case a success, with Pritchard noting that the department focuses on outcomes.
“What we really aim to do when we respond to a fire is that we contain the fire to where it started,” said Pritchard. “In this case, we contained it to where it started, so we’re very happy with that outcome. Of course we don’t ever want people to have fires, but in terms of how this happened, and the actions that we took, we’re very satisfied that we were able to prevent this from getting worse for Ronney and his family. We’re just incredibly happy that we were able to give them a good outcome after a very random thing to happen to them.”
The Fire Chief also suggested that all residents should take time to prepare escape plans in case of fire or other emergencies in advance, as they can happen at any time. One resource suggested for planning for such events can be found at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CFiL0FAggg.