Home saved after lightning strike

Firefighters saved a house early Wednesday morning after a lightning strike started a fire in the attic.

All five people and the family pets safely evacuated the single-story home in the 17000 block of North Smith Drive, which  was left with a five-foot-wide hole in the roof.

The house is rented by Rick Herald and his wife Gabby Herald. The Heralds said late Wednesday morning they were still trying to determine the cost of the damage.

At the time of the fire, the Heralds’ 16-year-old son, Ricky, was in the home as well as Gabby Herald’s sister, Davalyn Prendiz and her friend Jessica Murray.

Rick Herald said he realized the storm outside was getting bad when he woke up to banging outside at 11:30 p.m. His wife was watching television in the living room at the time.

The power went off shortly after and the couple went back to bed.

When the power came back on, the lights went on with it, and Ricky got up to turn them off and went into the kitchen. 

He said he smelled smoke, but because they had skunks in the backyard in the past and had smelled smoke before from other houses, he didn’t initially realize it was their house.

“The smoke alarm wasn’t going off. There wasn’t smoke yet,” Rick Herald said.

“We knew something was on fire,” Gabby Herald said. "We just didn’t think it was our house."

When the lights in the kitchen wouldn’t turn on, Rick said he “thought a wire popped in the attic or something.”

That was when he went outside and saw flames coming from the rooftop.

Gabby got everyone out of the house—including the family’s two chihuahuas, Alex and Junior — while Rick Herald called 911.

“We just stood across the street and waited for the fire department to come,” Gabby Herald said. 

The family’s third dog, a German shepard mix named Mia, was outside in the backyard and was taken out by firemen.

Fire crews responded within five minutes and extinguished the fire and saved the structure.

A bedroom near the garage, where the lightening initially struck, isn’t safe to enter because of roof hanging from it.

But, everyone—pets included—is safe.

“This is a case where the residents did everything they needed to do,” Pitassi said.

Pitassi said that attic fires are particularly dangerous and saving the home after one can be “an extremely difficult feat.”

In this case, however, Pitassi said “by calling 911, they were able to save the house.” 

“Things can be replaced; lives can’t,” Rick Herald said. “So making sure we got out was a first priority.”