Area Officials: Lightning Sparking Unusually High Number of Home Blazes

They say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, but it seems to be sparking more home fires than usual in Livingston County this summer, says Hartland's fire chief.

Typically, there are maybe one or two lightning-caused home fires a year, but there have been at least five or six already this summer, including , said Adam Carroll of the . No one was hurt in the blaze but the home was destroyed.

"This has been an inordinate year," said Carroll, who speculated that the growth in homes in Livingston County could be the reason behind the increase.

The owner of nationwide specialty company that sells and installs lightning rod systems attributes the increase to larger homes and a jump in the number of electronic devices that create static electricity that can attract bolts.

"It's the houses that people are building. Everything is electric — everything they could put in their home, they want it," said Seamus "Jim" Donohue, who is known as the "Lightning Rod Man" and has been installing lightning rods across the country since the mid-1970s in a business started by his great-grandfather.

He also said he's not surprised about Michigan.

"Detroit has been bad, too, this year," he said of strikes causing fires.

One cost estimate of protection

Carroll said homes are typically grounded for their electrical systems, but that doesn't protect them from lightning. He said home owners can install lightning protection systems.

"The problem is they are not a guarantee, they are just a fairly reliable system to prevent you from taking damage," he said.

Carroll said many businesses, churches and schools have lightning rod systems. He said he doesn't know how much they cost.

Donohue said the materials are available online, but he recommends hiring an expert. He said his business — which has offices in Kansas and Texas and serves the continental United States — sells systems that are long cables of typically either aluminum and copper with several rods. 

He said can cost anywhere between $10-$13 per foot of cable and homes typically need about 10 percent of their square footage. So, a 2,500-square foot home would need 250 feet of cabling that would cost roughly $2,500-$3,250.

The system pulls the static electrical charge from a home to allow it to dissipate, allowing the home to be less of a target, he said.

He said lightning strikes are more common than people think and only draw headlines when there is a fire but often destroy electronics inside.

"Nobody thinks about it until they get struck," he said. "Lightning does more property damage."