Lightning sparks home, swamp fires

A storm front that moved through central Maine Sunday afternoon left more than water and gumball-size pieces of hail in its wake, as lightning from the storm caused at least two fires.

Officials said lightning was the cause of a home fire in Eddington and a swamp fire in Bradley. It was unclear whether a railroad tie fire in Newport also was caused by the storm.

The Coffee Hill Way home of Jessica and David McCluskey in Eddington was struck by lightning as the family listened to the hail and thunder outside, Jessica McCluskey said. The family had just moved into their new home, which they had been building since last August, two months ago.

“There was just this loud kind of bang and the whole house shook,” she said. “A few minutes later the fire alarms started going off and we knew we’d been hit by lightning.”

David McCluskey went behind the house and grabbed a garden hose, which he threw through a back door and dragged up into the attic where the fire had begun.

“I had almost all of it out when the fire department pulled in,” he said.

Members of the Eddington Fire Department extinguished the fire, and damage was contained to the right rear corner of the attic, Eddington Fire Chief Arnold Grover said. Officials were unsure how much water damage was done to the home.

The house is also the home to 17-month-old Jacob McCluskey, who was quickly taken to a neighbor’s home. None of the three was injured.

The fire, which had been called in around 4:30 p.m., was completely extinguished within 15 minutes, because firefighters had been in their trucks returning from a forest fire call in Bradley, Grover said. The department had been unable to reach a swamp fire on the east side of Chemo Pond in Bradley and was returning to the station when the call for the McCluskey family home came in.

Nearly 3 acres of swampland burned in a fire caused by lightning from the same storm, Bradley Fire Chief Joel Shorette said. Wind blowing the fire toward the open water of Chemo Pond prevented the fire from causing significant damage.

The fire was located near Great Works Stream and was extinguished only after several buckets of water were dropped onto the area by a helicopter from the Maine Forest Service, Shorette said. A small group of firefighters was airlifted into the swamp to battle the remaining flames with portable water tanks.

The area was located several miles from the nearest road suitable for a firetruck to drive on, the chief said. Five firefighters rode the helicopter, along with members from the Maine Forest Service, and were dropped off in the swamp with portable water tanks that they loaded with water from the nearby pond.

“For some of those guys, it was their first ride in a helicopter,” Shorette said. “When they got dropped off they were up to their knees in water. It was mostly peat moss and brush on the water that burned.”

Several railroad ties near tracks on Highland Avenue in Newport required the attention of the Newport and Corinna fire departments just after 2 p.m. Sunday and were extinguished within two hours, officials said. Members of the Newport Fire Department were not available to comment on the fire’s origin.