LYNNFIELD — A bolt of lightning struck a large pine tree in the front yard of a residence on Oxbow Road early Friday morning, sparking a fire at the home, the Lynnfield Fire Department said.
Nobody was injured in the blaze, but the occupants of the home, a married couple and their dog, were displaced due to the damage, the department said.
The homeowner, Mike Smith, said that two trees in his front yard were struck by the lightning, and both had to be removed. Smith and his wife heard loud thunder at around 12:30 a.m., which he said scared their dog.
When the couple got up to calm the dog down, “two minutes later an enormous bang like a bomb went off and a flash of a very bright light,” said Smith.
“We didn’t really see what had happened,” he said.
The lightning strike occurred shortly before 12:30 a.m., with the bolt traveling through the root system of the tree into the basement of the home, the Fire Department’s Facebook page said.
Fire Lt. Jeff Fiorentino said that in the process of the lightning traveling through the home, it somehow ignited a gas fire behind the kitchen stove. He said the Fire Department is unsure of how exactly the fire was caused, but they believe the lightning and the fire are related.
“The fire was caused by lightning,” said Fiorentino.
Smith said he called 911 after hearing the loud noise. He and his wife started to gather their belongings, and then he said they noticed a fire burning behind the stove. He said they realized that they needed to get out of the house immediately, because of the additional danger a fire to a gas stove presented.
By the time the Smiths got out of the house, the fire department had arrived.
“They were only a quarter of a mile down the road,” said Smith, adding that firefighters managed to put out the fire.
The Lynnfield Fire Department shut off the gas to the home. A gas company arrived next to confirm that the shutdown was successful and there was no more gas in the home, Fiorentino said.
The neighbors as far as a mile away from the scene heard a loud explosion. One Lynnfield resident said his daughter lives five miles away from the damaged home, and she said she heard it too.
“I’ve heard thunder my whole life of 75 (years); this was an explosion,” the man said.
“It was pretty loud; it got people out of bed,” added Select Board member Phil Crawford.
At 3 p.m. on Friday, a tree-removal service was still working to clear the damaged trees from the Smiths’ yard.
“We lost 200-plus-year-old trees that had to come out,” said Smith. “We are grateful that no one was hurt. It could have been a lot worse.”