Dana Hawkes was standing in his driveway in Manchester when he saw his neighbor’s house hit by lightning on Sunday.
“It was crazy, it scared the hell out of me,” Dana Hawkes said. “I actually came outside to see where the storm was, and then I heard this crackling sound and I looked up and there were about five bolts all intertwined together, just BOOM like a big explosion and splinters everywhere.”
He says he immediately called his neighbor and 911 when the house caught fire.
“I called my neighbor and he thought I was joking with him. I said, ‘Your house was struck by lightning and is on fire,'” Hawkes said.
There was also a tornado warning for this area.
Fortunately, a tornado never touched down, but firefighters were already on high alert when they received this call.
“We were all standing in the apparatus room, you know, planning what we were going to do, so they were ready to go and jumped in the trucks pretty quickly,” said Battalion Chief Kenneth Proulx of the Manchester Fire Department.
Proulx says they were able to contain the fire to the attic, and he believes it was caused by lightning.
“We have multiple small fires in different parts of the attic, that is indicative of the electrical movement, so I would say yes, there are some similar signs,” Battalion Chief Proulx said.
“The fire and smoke are coming from our attic, thank God the firefighters got there quickly,” said Donna Provencher, who lives in the home that was hit.
Provencher says fortunately she and her fiancé were not home at the time of the lightning strike and anything damaged can be replaced.
“All I care about is that no one gets hurt,” Provencher said.
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