Lightning ignites Cary house fires
As storm clouds rolled over the Triangle Monday evening, firefighters in Cary were chasing lightning strikes.
Posted — UpdatedHomeowner Peggy Lorello heard a "very loud boom" in her house on Cedar Creek Drive during the storm. She said lightning hit her chimney, blasting the top off of it and damaging a closet upstairs.
"I saw the bricks coming down," Lorello said. "My closet is all blown up."
Chimney bricks littered her lawn.
Meanwhile, on Beasley Court, a lightning strike ignited another house fire. The family made it out safely, a neighbor said.
"There was a fire in the chimney," said neighbor Prem Manhas.
Firefighters said there was some electrical damage from the fire.
Another fire struck a room above the garage at a home on Vermel Court around the same time. Fire crews could not pinpoint the cause, but said severe weather is a possibility.
"It was always a potential. We were having heavy storms in Cary at the time the call came in," said David Ranes, battalion chief of the Cary Fire Department. "We were having multiple house fires reported at the same time, so that is very possible."
No one was injured.
"I feel very lucky," Lorello said.
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