‘Lightning strike’ sets house on fire
NEIGHBOUR DASHES INTO BURNING PROPERTY IN BID TO SAVE MAN AND DOG
A MAN has described the moment he ran to save his neighbour after hearing a crash of thunder and watching his house go up in flames.
Reece Lambert, 33, was in his home on Lepp Crescent, Bury, on Sunday evening with his partner Amy Fox, 33, when they heard a ‘loud bang.’
Moments later they saw a ‘big ball of white lightning’ and watched in horror as the house at the end of their garden became engulfed in smoke.
Recalling what happened, Reece said: “We heard a loud bang and saw this big ball of white lightning and minutes later we were like ‘I’m sure his bedroom is on fire.’ Then the curtains started going up. We saw him, our neighbour, downstairs and shouted ‘your bedroom’s on fire.’ The next thing he was running up the stairs and started throwing water over the fire and putting blankets over it. Within minutes it just set ablaze, black charcoal smoke everywhere.”
Reece immediately ran to his neighbour’s house in a bid to help him and
Amy called the fire service. He said: “I thought we have to go round there because he could have got trapped. I knew he was in his bedroom when everything went grey and black and smoke was everywhere anything could have happened. He could have passed out in there.”
Reece ran into the burning house to save his neighbour and his dog. He said: “We ran round and as I got to his house he was still trying to put the fire out with a bucket of water. I asked him if there was anyone else in the house and he said: ‘No just my dog, my dog, my dog.’ He was shouting for his dog and his dog wouldn’t respond. “It all happened so quick I didn’t know what to do. As soon as I went upstairs the bedroom was just black with smoke billowing out. There wasn’t much we could do. His dog must have been in his bedroom and gone out to another room but we couldn’t see anything, it was just pitch black. We were shouting for the dog but it wouldn’t respond because it was scared. We grabbed his hose pipe and then the fire brigade turned up.”
There were sparks flying off the trampoline and the next thing his bedroom went ablaze Reece Lambert
Thankfully both Reece’s neighbour and his dog escaped the blaze.
Greater Manchester Police, who attended the scene along with the fire service, confirmed one man was hurt in the fire but his injuries did not appear to be serious. Another resident on Lepp Crescent, whose garden also backs onto the house where the fire broke out, said she heard a ‘massive bang’ and ran outside to see what had caused it. She said: “There was a massive bang and a few of us all came out. The woman next door was screaming: ‘Help there’s a fire.’ We
looked out and the house had just gone up. We went out the back and there were just flames.”
The cause of the blaze has yet to be confirmed by the fire service but Reece and several other residents believe it was caused by a lightning strike.
He said: “There was a lightning bolt. I don’t know if it hit our trampoline or his shed that has a metallic roof. It could have hit that and bounced into his satellite dish or something. There were sparks flying off the trampoline and then next thing his bedroom went ablaze.”