A lightning strike tore through the ground and into an Abington home early Friday morning, igniting a three-alarm fire that forced a family of four out into the dark and left the house's doorknobs melted from the heat. Two adults and two children escaped safely, and the Red Cross stepped in to help the displaced family find somewhere to stay.
Abington Fire Chief Jack Glynn said the lightning struck a nearby tree before traveling underground toward the house, carving a trench roughly two feet wide through the ground on its way in, according to Boston 25 News. “The lightning hit the tree and traveled through the ground to the home,” Glynn said. The fire ended up concentrated primarily in an attached barn, though the force of the strike was felt well beyond the flames themselves — WCVB reported that the heat and force of the strike actually melted the home's doorknobs.
The jolt didn't stop at one house. Glynn said the same lightning strike also knocked out electrical systems at two other homes in the area, the station's report notes, underscoring just how far the current traveled once it hit the ground.
Conflicting Details on Timing, Location and Injuries
Exactly when and where crews responded remains murky, with local outlets offering different accounts. Boston 25 News reported that crews were called around 5:25 a.m. to a home on Randolph Street — also known as Route 139 — which was subsequently closed between Lincoln and Chestnut streets. WHDH, however, reported that crews were called to a home on Route 18 at approximately 6:30 a.m., and that officers were in the process of shutting down that road when a car crashed into a fire truck, as WHDH detailed in its coverage.
Accounts also diverge on whether anyone was hurt. Boston 25 News reported that no injuries were reported in connection with the fire. WCVB, by contrast, reported that one firefighter was taken to a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. Neither outlet's account has been reconciled with the other, and the firefighter's condition afterward was not detailed in either report.
Boston 25 News said an investigation into the fire's cause remained ongoing as of its report. No findings beyond Glynn's description of the lightning's path through the ground had been released.
How Common Are Lightning-Caused House Fires in Massachusetts?
Fires like the one in Abington are not frequent, but they are not unheard of either. A Massachusetts Department of Fire Services spokesperson told the Enterprise News that the state sees roughly 35 structure fires caused by lightning strikes each year. The outlet also reported that Massachusetts has had just three injuries tied to lightning-caused fires since 2020, including some among firefighters, and that there has not been a reported fatality from a lightning-caused house fire in the state in at least the preceding five years.
The Enterprise News coverage pointed to past local examples, including a May 2024 fire in Plymouth that a neighbor reported just before 1 p.m., which Plymouth Fire Chief Neil Foley said was most likely caused by a lightning strike in a preliminary investigation; that home was left uninhabitable by smoke and water damage. The same report noted that Brockton had two multiple-alarm fires sparked by lightning on the same day back in 2012, at homes on South Lane and Gifford Street.
A U.S. Fire Administration document estimates that lightning causes about 17,400 fires nationally each year, resulting in roughly 10 civilian deaths, 75 civilian injuries and $138 million in property damage annually, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. For the family that escaped Friday's blaze in Abington, those numbers offer little comfort beyond the fact that they made it out safely while the Red Cross helps sort out what comes next.
