Yahoo News ‘We saw a big ball of white lightning and then my neighbour's house went up in flames’
A man has described the moment he ran to save his neighbour after hearing a crash of thunder and watching his house go up in flames.
Reece Lambert, 33, was in his home on Lepp Crescent, Bury on Sunday evening (May 12) with his partner Amy Fox, 33, when they heard a ‘loud bang’.
Moments later they saw a ‘big ball of white lightning’ and watched in horror as the house at the end of their garden became engulfed in smoke.
Recalling what happened, Reece said: “We heard a loud bang and saw this big ball of white lightning and minutes later we were like ‘I’m sure his bedroom is on fire’.
“Then the curtains started going up. We saw him, our neighbour, downstairs and shouted ‘Your bedroom’s on fire’, the next thing he was running up the stairs and started throwing water over the fire and putting blankets over it. Within minutes it just set ablaze, black charcoal smoke everywhere,” he said.
Reece immediately ran to his neighbour's house in a bid to help him and his partner Amy called the fire service.
“I thought we have to go round there because he could have got trapped. I knew he was in his bedroom when everything went grey and black and smoke was everywhere anything could have happened. He could have passed out in there.”
The 33-year-old ran into the burning house to save his neighbour and his dog.
“We ran round and as I got to his house he was still trying to put the fire out with a bucket of water. I asked him if there was anyone else in the house and he said: ‘No just my dog, my dog, my dog’. He was shouting for his dog and his dog wouldn’t respond.
“It all happened so quick I didn’t know what to do. As soon as I went upstairs the bedroom was just black with smoke billowing out. There wasn’t much we could do.
“His dog must have been in his bedroom and gone out to another room but we couldn’t see anything, it was just pitch black. We were shouting for the dog but it wouldn’t respond because it was scared. We grabbed his hose pipe and then the fire brigade turned up,” Reece said.
Thankfully both Reece’s neighbour and his dog escaped the blaze.
Greater Manchester Police, who attended the scene along with the fire service, confirmed one man was hurt in the fire but his injuries did not appear to be life-threatening or serious.
Reece said: “I’m glad his dog was okay. I’m surprised. As long as he’s okay that’s the main thing. I’d like to think someone would do the same for us.”
Another resident on Lepp Crescent, whose garden also backs onto the house where the fire broke out, said she heard a ‘massive bang’ and ran outside to see what had caused it.
“There was a massive bang and a few of us all came out. The woman next door was screaming: ‘Help there’s a fire’. We looked out and the house had just gone up. We went out the back and there were just flames. The upstairs window was smashed in a circle,” she said.
The woman said she was comforting her young daughter, who was afraid of the lightning and unable to sleep, just moments before the house went up in flames.
“I was saying ‘It’s fine, you’re okay, you're inside’ and then I came downstairs to that and was like ‘oh my god’. The sound was like something I’ve never heard before.”
The cause of the blaze has yet to be confirmed by the fire service but Reece and several other residents believe it was caused by a lightning strike.
He said: “There was a lightning bolt. I don’t know if it hit our trampoline or his shed that has a metallic roof. It could have hit that and bounced into his satellite dish or something.
“There were sparks flying off the trampoline and then next thing his bedroom just went ablaze.”
In a statement issued last night, a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service said: "Just before 8.30pm this evening (Sunday 12th May), three fire engines from Bury Central, Whitefield and Ramsbottom attended an incident on Lepp Crescent, Bury. Firefighters have been in attendance for around two and a half hours and are still at the scene.”
In an updated statement, the fire service said this morning: "Just before 8.30pm last night (Sunday 12 May), three fire engines from Bury Central, Whitefield and Ramsbottom attended an incident on Lepp Crescent, Bury. Firefighters were in attendance for around six hours."
A 34-year-old resident on Holme Avenue, which backs onto Whitehead Crescent, said the blaze broke out at ‘exactly the same time’ as a thunderstorm hit the area. Yellow warnings for thunderstorms covered large parts of the UK, including Greater Manchester, on Sunday.
The resident said: “It sounded like a bomb went off. All the top windows melted. It was exactly the same time as the lightning. The full sky lit up.”
Another resident on Holme Avenue, aged 29, said she was worried the lightning would ‘strike again’ following the fire.
“We were worried the lightning was going to strike again. Because it struck there first my neighbour said: ‘I’m not turning my alarm on in my summer house. I might get electrocuted. We were like ‘oh my god that's the closest it’s ever been’. Then we saw and smelt the smoke”, she said.
Andy Salvin, 62, another resident on Holme Avenue said he heard the lightning while watching TV last night and then saw smoke billowing from a house near his. He said he had heard the lightning hit the aerial ‘shot through the back bedroom and set fire to it’.
“It was loud. Everyone was gobsmacked. It sounded like a bomb going off. Then there were big clouds of smoke coming out the back of the house,” he said.
Andy said the road was then ‘completely blocked off’ by fire engines, police and ambulance while neighbours watched on in shock.
