House fire thought caused by lightning

Residents were displaced by a house fire firefighters say was caused by a lightning strike.

Eastlake Fire Department responded about 1:41 p.m. May 12 to a house fire 143 St. Lawrence Blvd. that is believed to have been caused by lightning.

Neighboring departments from Mentor, Willoughby, Willowick, Euclid, Willoughby Hills, Green River, Concord, and Wickliffe helped during that incident.

The fire started in a basement crawl space. It was described by Battalion Chief Robert Lloyd as tough to fight due to difficulty in getting to it.

“So, we were going through people fairly quick, and it was during the height of that storm,” Lloyd said. “We had a lot of calls going on and we had some of those other cities handle calls for us, too.”

The call came into to the station at 1:41 p.m., firefighters were on scene at 1:46 p.m. and the fire was under control and several of the companies were released at 3:20 p.m., he said.

There were no injuries to report, and pets were unharmed.

But the house is currently uninhabitable with no power or gas to it. There is heavy smoke damage throughout the house even though the fire damage was confined to a large crawl space and the basement.

The Red Cross was called in to assist residents along with their insurance company, so they have a place to stay.

The department is estimating damages including the contents and the structure to be approximately $110,000.

A lightning strike is believed to be the possible cause of the fire.

“We had multiple reports of lightning hitting the area,” Lloyd said.

Unless the department gets the lightning guide that shows exactly where lightning struck there is no way to confirm that was the exact cause. But the department ruled out other causes and received multiple reports of houses in the area that might have been hit, he said.

St. Lawrence Boulevard was shut down to traffic during the time of the fire.

Lloyd noted the city had to sound a second alarm and get help from the other cities to handle other incidents. The fire department received four other calls during the time units were at the scene of the fire. The department was already out on an ambulance call when the call for the fire came in, so they had to call for help because they didn’t have a full shift in the station when the call came in.