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Is Your Home Ready for a Lightning Strike? | SERVPRO® of Conway & Faulkner Counties
10/1/2022 (Permalink)
If you are dealing with smoke or fire damage from a recent fire, call SERVPRO of Conway & Faulkner Counties to learn about a restoration solution for
Fire safety is most commonly focused on preventing fires inside the home. But what happens when the fire originates from a source outside of our control? Lightning strike fires can be incredibly destructive if they are not caught and extinguished right away.
Having your home hit by a lightning bolt actually is more common than you might assume. In 2020 alone, 70,000 homes were damaged by lightning or the fire after the strike. If this happens to you, it is important to know what to do!
Lightning is a reaction of a large electric current inside a thunderstorm. When the current becomes overly charged, a giant spark is produced and travels to the ground.
Wherever lightning decides to hit, there is risk of a fire or widespread damage.
If your home gets hit by lightning, it is really important to do a thorough check of every level of your house to catch any fires, as one may have started inside a wall or up in the eaves of your house.
Since Mother Nature is unpredictable, it is impossible to know exactly when a lightning strike might hit your home, but you can take some preventive measures.
Add a lightning rod to your roof to help absorb some of the impact of that electrical current. These metal poles are great for reducing your overall level of damage.
Next, you can add surge protectors around the outlets in your home to protect your electronics and to prevent an overall electrical disaster.
Unfortunately, even if you escape a thunderstorm without your home experiencing a lightning strike, you can still be the victim of a lightning fire! All it takes is a strike in a dry field or on a house where no one is home for a fire to get out of control quickly. If that happens, a wildfire may begin.
Address your yard from time to time, and clear it of dead grass or leaves often. You should also look into how you choose to landscape your yard and incorporate some defensible space zones to provide your home with a buffer.
The most important thing to remember is that if you do discover a fire after a lightning strike, get out of your home and call 911. Staying safe is crucial!
After the fire has been extinguished by the professionals, call us at SERVPRO of Conway & Faulkner Counties. We are ready to respond to any type of fire disaster and we will help you fully recover.
Have you experienced smoke or fire damage in your home? Call us today to get the restoration finished fast.