Quote:
Originally Posted by twoplanekid
Will a direct lightning hit always cause a fire? For those homes that had lightning protection and were hit, how did they know that their houses took a direct hit?
|
Not every direct lightning strike causes a fire. We have had 5 or 6 cases this summer where a home took a direct lightning strike but fortunately for the homeowner there was no ensuing fire. This is a near miss - lightning is not only dangerous, random, but highly unpredictable as well.
We have interviewed over a dozen homeowners with lightning rods that believe they took a direct hit. In one case the homeowner witnessed lightning striking one of the rods on his pool cage, jump to the next rod and was safely shunted to ground without any fire or structural damage to the home. In another case a retired firefighter's home took a direct hit, had the system inspected by his installer who showed him the tip of one rod that took the hit that showed evidence of scorching. Again, no fire nor structural damage.
Here is a quote from the Preface of Dr. Martin Uman's book, The Art & Science of Lightning Protection; "Does the standard lightning protection eliminate the possibility of lightning damage to structures? and the answer is 'almost always.'" Remember safety is never absolute and anything man-made can fail. Lightning protection systems work a very high percentage of the time well into the 90% range.