Karen Boudreau credits her neighbor's quick actions for alerting her to the flames, saving her garage and potentially her home
Credit: ABC10/YouTube
NEED TO KNOW
- A California woman’s garage caught fire after a lightning strike during a storm
- She saw no sign of fire from inside, but her neighbor spotted the flames and alerted her
- Without the quick actions of the neighbor and rapid response of the fire department, Karen Boudreau believes she would’ve lost her garage, and possibly her home
A California homeowner says a lightning strike that hit her garage on Saturday night cost thousands of dollars in damage. But it could have been much worse if it weren't for the actions of her neighbor.
On Saturday, April 11, Karen Boudreau was sitting in her family room when she saw a bright flash and heard what she described as a sound like an explosion. The Grass Valley resident says it occurred during an evening storm around 8 p.m in the remote area.
“All of a sudden, there was a big, major flash of light and a big boom, and I thought, oh my goodness, I had a tree fall on my house,” she tells local outlet ABC 10.
The homeowner then rushed upstairs to check for damage, worried a tree might have crashed down on her roof. But after searching, Boudreau didn't find any issues and eventually decided to go to bed.
Credit: Peardale Chicago Park Fire
But not long after, she heard banging on her door. It was her neighbor who lives close by.
“He was sitting in his office, and he saw the lightning hit the side of the building, and then he saw the flames,” she says. “So he came running down, jumped the fence, and he's pounding on my door to tell me because I was inside when it happened.”
The neighbor then had his wife call the Peardale-Chicago Park Fire Department, which arrived within minutes. Boudreau says she wasn't initially able to spot the flames because there were in a blind spot from her vantage point.
“Best we can tell, it hit the gutter. It's metal so it's a good conductor of heat,” Capt. Daniel Ramey said of how it ignited nearby objects.
The firefighter says elements of the storm also made it so the fire grew even stronger.
“You had a lot of wind with this storm. Anytime you have a thunderstorm, you're going to have some flows just back and forth, back and forth, and the way that the neighbor described it to me, we had an open flame, kind of curling up on the edge of the eaves,” Ramey says. “So it was a well-established working fire.”
If it weren't for the quick actions of her neighbor and rapid response from the fire department, Boudreau believes she would've lost her garage — and possibly her home.
“That wind was blowing, things were exploding around and so I could have lost my home. But I didn't, thank goodness, thank goodness for my neighbors and our fire department,” she says.
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“My biggest takeaway is look out for each other. Like we've done, and make sure we're good neighbors and friends and family because that's how we survive out here,” Boudreau adds.
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