PHOTOS: Lightning struck a vacant townhouse in Mills on Wednesday night, according to initial reports. Fire Chief Wil Gay with the Mills Fire Department stated that he and his crew were dispatched to a fire in the Badger Lane area of Mills with initial reports of a lightning strike. โWe were dispatched to a fire in a multi-unit dwelling,โ Gay told Oil City News. โThe RP [reporting party] actually did tell dispatch that they thought the building had got hit by lightning. We have investigators from our inter-agency task force doing the investigation right now.โ
Gay said that there was damage to one of the townhouses in the area, but that the building was unoccupied at the time of the fire. โI did talk to the building owner and he said all four of these units are currently unoccupied,โ Gay said, โso it helps. I mean, yes, thereโs damage. But the good thing is we donโt have any families displaced from it.โ
Though the lightning only struck one building, there was some residual smoke in the townhouse next to it. โWe had a second townhouse that did have some smoke in the attic space,โ he said. โNot because there was a common firewall; it just typically finds its way to migrate. But thereโs no damage [to the second townhouse]. Weโre ventilating that one right now. The other two [townhouses] to the north are completely untouched.
Paulette M., a resident of Mills and a neighbor to the building that was struck, said that she heard the lightning before she saw anything. โWe had a lightning strike and both the sound and the flash were instantaneous,โ she said. โIt was huge and loud โ honestly, the loudest Iโve ever heard. About 15 minutes later, all the firetrucks started coming. When I looked out, you could actually see the flames and smoke coming out of the roof.โ
Gay confirmed there were no injuries and that the fire had been contained. โWeโre just going to make sure the fireโs out of the attic before we go home,โ Gay said.
