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Thunderstorm, luck, and being alive.

Name:	Stefan Lundmark
Date Posted:	Aug 14, 2006
Rating:	2.0 out of 5
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This morning, I woke up by a nearby thunderstorm. Knowing our area gets hit by the lightning pretty often, I went upstairs to turn off all the electronics.

I could see a bright flash, and then I heard a very loud sound that I just cannot describe. Like one of those plasma-beam sounds you hear in movies. So I went outside to take a look and this is what I see.

09:30

Turns out our neighbors house is on fire. I called SOS, then ran in yelling without finding anyone inside. Apparantly both Lukas & Anna were at work. After another neighbor came by, we tried to feed water to the spot, but electricity got cut. The heat was overwhelming and it got difficult to breath even remotly distant from the fire. After a while, a barrel of diesel exploded and we (the neighbors) decided to back off.

09:32

After 30 minutes, the fire department arrived and needless to say, there was nothing they could do except to make sure the fire didnt spread to other buildings nearby.

10:15

Still - after 3 hours I am still shocked, and Im trying to get productive again. But I cant get this event out of my head and I havent even been able to get anything done that makes sense today.

I am disheartened to see those guys lose their house that they worked so much on, and it disturbs me that it could had been our house that was on fire.

Luck is a strong word.

11:20

Recent Blog Posts

List:	07/03/07 - Improved Max2Dts Exporter 10/09/06 - Torque and modifications 08/14/06 - Thunderstorm, luck, and being alive. 07/26/05 - Plan for Stefan Lundmark 11/02/04 - Plan for Stefan Lundmark

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Martin Schultz (Aug 14, 2006 at 11:09 GMT)

Woaah!!!!! Glad to hear you're alive. Where do you live in Sweden that there are so many thunderstorms?

I hope you all recover soon from this "accident". All the best to you and your neighbours.

Philip Mansfield (Aug 14, 2006 at 11:43 GMT)

Wow! 30 mins for a response seems pretty dire. Were the fire service informed that noone was inside the building when the call was made?

Anton Bursch (Aug 14, 2006 at 12:21 GMT)

I'm glad you're ok, Steven. That is horrible. I lived in 2 towns that were hit by fires all over during the summer and it's insane how out of control it is. I was in a house and all the houses around were on fire. We were trying to put out the fire as it got closer at one point. There were children in the house. It was crazy. Nothing like watching giant walls of fire come toward you in all directions to make you feel totally freaked out and completely appreciative of your life. And sitting there and thinking how the other houses would be you if the slightest thing were different... don't work man, go out and have a day on the town and live because you could have just lost everything.

Rodney (OldRod) Burns (Aug 14, 2006 at 13:29 GMT)

Phillip: if it's a rural area with a volunteer department, 20-30 minutes is not unusual at all unfortunately :(

Jonathon Stevens (Aug 14, 2006 at 14:28 GMT)

Why didn't you cast blizzard or ice storm on the house? OOM?

Glad it wasn't you. I'd be in trouble if my house burned down. I insure it for it's value when I bought it 3 years ago, but I've put over $20k into it so it's actually worth about $50k more than what I have it insured for! Sheesh, now I'm really motivated to go up my policy.

Unsung Zero (Aug 14, 2006 at 14:29 GMT)

Don't press yourself to be productive for the next few days. It won't be worth it. Talk with your neighbors, help them out if you can, and just appreciate that no one was injured or killed.

I've had a neighbor's house catch fire, but they weren't as "lucky".

Ajari Wilson (Aug 14, 2006 at 14:31 GMT)

Where the hell do you live. "Here's a tip, Move out of the sticks!"

A very famous quote from the Wolf cleaner hitman guy that drove the Acura NSX in Pulp Fiction.

I think the aliens just got bored with kidnapping you and drawing pretty designs in corn fields and are now just having a little fun. Just kidding, Looks like a nice place to live besides the exploded house next to you and all. I wish I had huge marshmellows in my front yard. Seriously though I wanna say be careful but how do you protect yourself against something like that. Isn't there something you can put on or in your house to prevent ion cannon beams from detonating it? Anyway, I hope they can rebuild and soon. Until then they can stay with you right? You seem to be the only other house for miles.
-Ajari-

Alexander "taualex" Gaevoy (Aug 14, 2006 at 14:50 GMT)

Horrible, I'm glad nobody got injured...
Looking at that house - I'm getting sad because of the ways they built houses nowdays and 40 years ago - "paper house"... A brick house wont get burned that easily...

Stefan, yes, go out and get some drinks, I had similar situation before - talking to friends helps to get rid of the stress. Get 2 oz of whisky with ice ;)
My wife works in fire department as a coordinator - she helps to calm people down in such situations while guys are fighting the fire, she also told me some freaking stories...

Good luck!

Harold "LabRat" Brown (Aug 14, 2006 at 16:16 GMT)

We had lightning hit a tree right outside our house one year. Was about 25 feet from the house, luckily for us the lightning only wrapped around the tree and went into the ground. But you're right... bright blue-white flash, odd sound and one hell of a big boom.

Kevin Johnson (Aug 14, 2006 at 16:26 GMT)

steph, glad to hear your ok, any word on what started it? lightning strike, maybe?

k

Stefan Lundmark (Aug 14, 2006 at 20:11 GMT)

Thanks for all the responses!

@Martin & Philip
I live in the south-eastern part of Sweden. Ostergotland. There's more thunderstorms coming tonight so sleep will have to wait, at least tonight. What makes me worried is that now, our house is the highest one.
Apparantly, the fire department had cars going out to 4 other fires at the same time, and our city is small (22 000 inhabitants) so they had to prioritize. Cant blame em.

@Jonathon:
I hope you guys dont have so many natural disasters. That sounds painful.

@Unsung:
Good advice, thanks.

@Anton:
Yeah, that's exactly how it felt. I mean, its so much power. I always thought that a building could be saved after being hit by the lighting if the fire never gets too big. But it spreads so fast and you feel so little when there's a huge pillar of fire in the air.

@Ajari:
Aye. There's always putting up a high copper wire in the air and leading it down into the ground, but apparantly that does not always prevent lightning from hitting something else.
There's alot of other houses nearby (like a dozen) but they were behind me when I took those photographs so you cant see em.

@Alexander:
I'm not sure brick would help. I hear lightning cuts trough materials until they hit something solid and deep. We sometimes find huge oaks that were cut in half by the lightning.

@Kevin:
It was a lightning strike that hit the far section of the roof. After 3 minutes the whole upper section was overlit, and the building is about 20 meters long. That's alot. :/

- Thanks again for all the responses.
Edited on Aug 14, 2006 20:14 GMT

Jonathon Stevens (Aug 14, 2006 at 20:16 GMT)

Mother Nature FTW!

Alexander "taualex" Gaevoy (Aug 14, 2006 at 21:06 GMT)

@ Stefan

Brick usually helps to stop or isolate fire - it's fire resistant. usually, in a brick house only 1-2 rooms will be burned, the rest might be just damaged.

It's also seems that that house wasnt properly grounded - check the grounding in your house ;)
The static electricity should travel through the wire to the ground, not through the house :/

Stefan Lundmark (Aug 14, 2006 at 21:26 GMT)

It is very rare in Sweden that a civilian building has a ground-wire/lightning trap. I know this is not the case in (for instance) Serbia, so there's probably room for improvement. But nevertheless, it's rare here and not many have the knowledge to properly setup one.

Alexander "taualex" Gaevoy (Aug 14, 2006 at 21:39 GMT)

>It is very rare in Sweden that a civilian building has a ground-wire/lightning trap

8-[ o]
Really ?!!!!! Omg...

For me - It's like saying I didnt know that I have to wash my hands after visiting the restroom :)
Well, different cultures - different methods... ;)
I know for sure that most of Finland, Germany, baltic countries, Russia, other easten countries do have to have the lightning trap, otherwise the building will not pass the government post-built check up.

My grandma's house (that's in Indiana, US, very rural area like yours) recently was hit directly by a lightning - we only painted it, replaced phone line and bought a new computer (was working at the moment and didnt have a surge protector)...

Man, you better put the trapping, we all would like to see you in the forums on the regular basis ;)

Mark McCoy (Aug 15, 2006 at 01:51 GMT)

Yikes, there's nothing left of that house. Glad to hear everyone is okay.

Jesse (Midhir) Liles (Aug 15, 2006 at 04:26 GMT)

That's happened to me before, unfortunately it wasn't lightning, it was the neighbor.
Since then I've been a little more suspicious of neighbors.

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