Lighting strike fire destroys McLendon-Chisholm home

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June 17, 2009

Leslie Gibson - Reporter The Zope Gazette Wed Jun 17, 2009, 01:35 PM CDT

MCLENDON-CHISHOLM—When storms rolled through southern Rockwall County in the early morning Thursday, June 11, lightning triggered a fire which basically destroyed a house in McLendon-Chisholm, which took nearly all day to extinguish.

Fire Chief Skippy Waters of McLendon-Chisholm Volunteer Fire Department said neighbors called in seeing the roof on fire about 7:30 a.m. that day.

“We probably didn’t get off the fire until 3:30 or 4 that evening,” Waters said.

No one was injured, and no one was at home at the time of the fire, according to the fire chief.

Much of the afternoon was spent dealing with items smoldering in the garage, on which the second floor had caved in.

Rockwall County road and bridge department brought vehicles to help remove the items from the garage so the fire department members could spray the foam on them.

“It was a big house — the top floor caved in on the garage,” Waters said, as to why the long day. “It led to a lot of problems to get that stuff out that was smoldering. We called county to come pull all of the contents out of garage to put foam on it to not kindle.”

The firemen were OK, but tired, he said.

Lighting was still frequent as they fought the blaze that morning, Waters said. “While we were there trying to put the fire out, we almost got hit by lightning,” he said. Lightning struck a tree trunk on the next lot, and turned the tree black, he said. “I felt it in my chest.”

Fate and Royse City Volunteer Fire Departments provided mutual aid.

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