Lightning sparks fire in Batavia house
A lightning strike early Wednesday lead to a fire which caused $200,000 damage to a Batavia home, and one firefighter suffered a minor injury battling the blaze.
Wayne and Joyce Krzysiak said they were alerted to the fire about 10 a.m. by a landscaper working in the yard of their two-story home in the 2400 block of Bird Lane.
Batavia Fire Chief Randy Deicke said lightning is the likely cause of the fire, which was primarily confined to two upstairs bedrooms. The entire home, however, had water damage.
Wayne Krzysiak said about 2:15 a.m. the home's security alarm went off. He went to the location in the home where the system indicated a problem existed, but he found nothing amiss, so went back to bed.
"We never smelled anything. Never smelled smoke," Krzysiak said.
Eight hours later landscapers were working in the yard when one of the workers "frantically knocked on our door and said, 'Your roof is on fire,' " Krzysiak said.
He said a fire alarm in the house never went off before the knock on the door from the landscaper, but sounded just then. Deicke said flames were coming out of one of the windows when firefighters arrived.
"The security alarm could have gone off from vibrations from the lightning" during a storm in the middle of the night, Deicke said. He added that there didn't appear to be smoke detectors in the attic, and that's likely why the home's fire alarm didn't go off until the fire broke through the ceiling.
"The fire department did a tremendous job," Krzysiak said. "They were here very quickly."
The front of the house and the roof were burned, causing $150,000 damage to the structure and $50,000 damage to the contents, the fire department said.
Deicke said firefighters were called to investigate another house hit by lightning Tuesday night, but that strike did not cause a fire. He suggests that building owners call firefighters to inspect any building they suspect has been hit by lightning.
Firefighters from Geneva, North Aurora, St. Charles, West Chicago and Elburn and Countryside assisted Batavia.
The injured firefighter sprained an ankle, Deicke said.
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