Pickens Fire Chief Bob Howard reported lightning strikes caused three structure fires and kept emergency crews busy on roadways and with other calls Monday afternoon and evening.
“Total havoc,” Howard said Tuesday morning, but he noted all three home fires were handled with no injuries and only minimal damage to two of the three structures. The third structure was also saved due to “textbook” work by fire crews.
Two of the fires attributed to lightning created mostly just smoke with only minimal damage. The calls at Highway 53 West in Jasper and at 7 Barrel Way in Nelson where both handled with minimal damage, the chief reported.
Lightning was also suspected as the cause of a fire reported by residents of Mt. Haven Road in the Grandview area. The residents weren’t home during the storm but arrived later to see smoke coming from the home and “heavy smoke” inside.
Howard said the Grandview/Cove Road station was on the scene quickly, with Jasper Fire and the county’s central station (Station 11) coming as backup.
Howard said the fire appears to have started when lightning ran in to the electrical wiring of the house and sparked a blaze beneath the floor. Fire had burned through the floor when fire crews arrived, according to reports.
“The crews did an absolutely textbook job of cutting off that fire,” Howard said. “There would have been a real mess otherwise.”
In addition to the house fires, Pickens fire crews also had to respond to two brush fires and numerous EMS calls. “Can you imagine brush fires with all that rain falling?” Howard asked.
The chief speculates both brush fires were illegal burns that got out of hand when two different people decided it would be good to burn some brush before the rain fell.
“When the major storms were coming through, we had all hands paged out,” he said, meaning all emergency personnel were called into the field.
In addition to the other damage caused by lightning, reports were made of four horses killed by a single lightning strike on Pleasant Hill Road. All four animals had been standing together and were dead when the owner arrived to the spot.
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