Investigators are trying to determine whether a lightning strike during a nasty summer storm triggered a house fire on Grand Street in Seymour late Thursday.
No one was home at the time of the fire and there were no injuries.
Firefighters were sent to 85 Grand St. at about 9:30 p.m., as a series of thunderstorms moved through the state from west to east.
“I can’t confirm with certainty this was the result of lightning,” Chief John Cronin said. “But when we arrived there was a fire in the exterior walls in the back of the house.”
The National Weather Service issued a series of alerts Thursday night, warning of dangerous lightning and, at one point, urging people to seek shelter.
The fire department responded to Grand Street after an automatic alarm was triggered.
Upon arriving to the scene firefighters saw smoke coming out of the house and into the area as neighbors looked on.
“We quickly extinguished the fire in the exterior walls and had to tear some siding down,” Cronin said.
After removing some siding from the house, firefighters noticed some extension of the fire inside the structure, but damage was minimal.
“There’s mostly just exterior and cosmetic damage to the home,” Cronin said. “The house is still habitable and we disconnected the utilities just to be safe.”
The rolling storms caused power problems in some parts of the Valley.
Here’s what Hawthorne Avenue in Derby near Roseland Pizza looked like at about 8 p.m. Thursday:
Derby https://t.co/0xzQWXxHSA
— The Valley Indy (@ValleyIndy) July 4, 2014As of 9:30 p.m. Thursday, 513 CL&P customers were without electricity in Seymour, roughly 7 percent of all CL&P customers in town. Next door in Oxford, 136 CL&P customers were without power.
By 1 a.m. Friday, power had been restored, except for one customer in Oxford.
The storm also caused the train gate to close on Division Street on the Ansonia-Derby border late Thursday, causing a headache for motorists.
More rain and thunder is in the forecast for Friday, according to the National Weather Service, as Hurricane Arthur (still a hurricane as of this writing) makes his way up north:
The forecast:
Showers and possibly a thunderstorm.
Some of the storms could produce heavy rain.
High near 76. South wind 5 to 7 mph becoming north in the afternoon.
Chance of precipitation is 100 percent. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible.
Friday Night:
A chance of showers, mainly before 7 p.m.
Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear, with a low around 56.
Northwest wind 7 to 10 mph.
Chance of precipitation is 30 percent.
