Lightning strikes home, displacing occupants

Lightning struck a home in the Image neighborhood Sunday night, frying its power and temporarily displacing its occupants.

Vancouver firefighters responded around 7:20 that night to a caller saying a neighbor’s home had been struck by lightning.

Vancouver Fire Department spokesman Darrin Deming said firefighters responded with four engines and a truck, which is standard for structure fires, to the 4000 block of Northeast 130th Avenue.

Firefighters didn’t find any active fire, he said, but the strike did fry the home’s electrical system.

Deming said the strike rendered the home uninhabitable, and the occupants made arrangements for temporary lodging.

Lightning strike-prompted calls are pretty uncommon, Deming said.

“In the 15-plus years I’ve been doing this, this might be my second time going to a house that was struck,” he said.

The other time — it was actually a church, he added — he was working in Texas when lightning struck a church and set the building aflame.