'Ba-Boom! The House Shook,' Lightning Likely Hit Franklin Home, Sparking Fire
FRANKLIN (CBS) - Lightning appears to have sparked a fire that heavily damaged a house in Franklin early Thursday morning.
Homeowner Robert Glencross said he was startled out of bed around 4 a.m.
"It was the loudest explosion. It sounded like a bomb going off. It was just like that, ba-boom! The house shook, I shook and I knew what it was," he told WBZ-TV.
"There is no doubt about it. It hit the house and it hit it good."
Glencross grabbed his cell phone and wallet and got out of the house on North Park Street. It was pouring rain and smoke was shooting out of the roof. Then it erupted in flames.
"All the wires and all the electrical outlets started popping off. It looked like the fireworks," Glencross said.
Three people who live on the other side of the two-family home also made it out safely. But sadly, one pet did not.
The chief said it took a long time to get the fire under control.
"There's always challenges with a fire like this. We had heavy fire conditions on the second floor, they made it difficult to fight the fire," Fire Chief James McLaughlin said.
Glencross says he's a collector. Firefighters were able to salvage some of his items, but he has a feeling he lost a lot.
"I don't know what it's going to be like when I go back in there. I'm sure it's going to be wet because they doused the house," he said.
He's owned half the house for six years but the owners on the other side have had it in their family for more than a century.
"For 120 years that family's lived there and I feel bad for them because obviously, there's a lot of history there," Glencross said.
Despite the serious damage, he's keeping a positive attitude.
"It's out of my hands. No one's hurt. It was a pretty eventful day," he said.
The official cause of the fire is still under investigation.
