Lightning sets house ablaze

Lightning set a house ablaze early Wednesday morning a few miles east of Washington. The house burnt to the ground. No one was inside at the time and no injuries were reported.

The fire occurred at 2574 Redwood Avenue, which is about three miles southeast of Washington. The house that caught fire was built in the 1800s. It was abandoned and had not been used for several years. Steve Stone and his wife Kim Hertel live in a house just a year old on the property about 100 feet from the old house.

Stone reported that he heard a loud lightning strike a little before 4 a.m. It temporarily knocked out the power in his house. One of the smoke alarms in the new house doesn?t have a back-up battery, so it began beeping. The beeping woke his wife, who thought it was the alarm clock telling her to go to work.

Hertel went into the kitchen to make coffee. She saw a red glow out the window coming from the old house to the northwest. Stone rolled over in bed and noticed flames shooting out of the building.

?I said, ?Honey, you?ve got to call 911. The whole house is on fire!?? remarked Stone.

Nothing of value was in the old house except a few boards that Stone hoped to salvage. His main concern upon seeing the flames was his vehicles parked next to the old house. There was a car, a truck and a tractor just outside the old house. Stone woke his brother Larry so that Larry could help him move the vehicles.

About 25 firefighters from the Ainsworth Fire Department and Washington Fire Department arrived on the scene. Stone immediately informed them that no one was inside so there was no reason to enter the house.

Washington Fire Chief Tom Wide said his department takes all fires seriously and attacks them aggressively. Once the firefighters know that no one is inside a burning building, they do not enter it.

?We?re not going to jeopardize anyone for an abandoned building,? said Wide.

Wide said the house was fully engulfed when he arrived at the scene. There was no electricity or gas to the house, which is why he thinks it was caused by the lightning strike that interrupted power to the new house.

?I?m pretty sure lightning started the fire,? he said.

There was a mother cat and her kittens in the trailer next to the old house. A firefighter helped Stone move the cats away from fire. Stone and Hertel said they were impressed with the fire departments and appreciative of the help the firefighters gave them.

?Not one animal was injured,? said Stone.

Stone and Hertel did a head count of their cats to make sure they were all accounted for, and they were.

Afterward, the firefighters told Stone and Hertel they were lucky the wind was blowing from the east, pushing the fire away from the new house and the trailer. Had the fire been from the other direction, the firefighters said the trailer would have caught fire, too, and maybe even the new house.

Stone said he intended to tear down the old house after removing the good wood inside. He has lived on the property for nine years. He is aware that previous property owners used to store things in the house but he has not used it for anything since he moved to the site.

?I have no idea who the last person was who lived there,? said Stone.