Family picking up the pieces after lightning hits home
CENTER TWP — A family is picking up the pieces after fire Wednesday night damaged their log home on Spring Run Road.
“This was our dream house,” John Manson said Thursday as he inspected the damage and sorted through belongings that could be salvaged.
Fire officials blamed a lightning bolt for causing the blaze about 7:30 p.m., as heavy storms rolled through Butler County.
Manson and his wife, Beth, his stepdaughter and nearly 3-year-old granddaughter were home but all — including the family's two dogs — got out safely.
A volunteer firefighter for one of eight responding departments had to be taken to the hospital to be examined for over-exertion, authorities said.
Damage to the two-story home, which was insured, was estimated at $150,000.
The 58-year-old Manson was home in his first-floor office going through paperwork for the Starlight Drive-In on Route 8 in Center Township that he and his wife own when he felt the lightning hit.
It appeared the bolt of lightning hit the roof of the porch in back of the house, said Nathan Wulff, chief of the Unionville Volunteer Fire Department, and traveled down a pillar, igniting tires under the deck.
Manson rushed outside in the torrential rain and found that the force of the lightning had shattered the pillar. He deployed a dry chemical fire extinguisher and put out the fire coming from the porch.
But then his eyes glanced upward and he realized there was bigger trouble.
“I looked up,” he said, “and saw the roof on fire.”
Read the full story about the blaze in Friday's Butler Eagle.
