Thunderstorms shake area

A burning two-story house in the Redfields subdivision in Albemarle County brought neighbors out to watch Monday afternoon as firemen sprayed water on the blaze from a ladder truck.

By the time the fire was under control, the interior of the house was soaking wet. Hoses snaked through the front door into the hallway, which glistened with puddles of water. The exterior walls up to the second floor were intact but the roof had almost entirely caved in.

While the cause of the fire was under investigation as of late Monday afternoon, several neighbors believe that lightning struck the roof and set it on fire. Bill Clark, an investigator with the Albemarle County Fire Marshal’s Office, said that the fire started in the attic.

Lightning was one of several climatic events to happen in Central Virginia Monday afternoon. According to the National Weather Service, a cold weather front over the Appalachian Mountains pushed thunderstorms east over Charlottes-ville and neighboring counties, bringing with them lightning, hail and heavy rain.

The rain stopped while firefighters battled the blaze at 971 Grayson Lane. First, the firefighters entered the burning house on the ground floor, went upstairs and punched holes in the ceiling to allow them to spray water into the attic from below, Clark said. When the roof started caving in firefighters used a ladder truck to attack the fire from above.

The blaze was reported at around 5 p.m. by Mary Schubert, a neighbor who was returning home from Lynchburg. Schubert saw smoke coming out of a vent in the attic and called 911 from her cell phone.

The owners were not home when the fire started. Esther Onega, a neighbor, told one of the owners about the fire as he was returning home with his daughter.

“He was in shock,” Onega said. He left shortly afterward to tell his wife, who was still at work, Onega said. They had only lived in the house for several weeks.

Michelle Prosser, who lives next to the house, was inside her home when she heard a “huge boom” and then saw flames coming out of her neighbors’ house. “It happened so quick. The whole house was ablaze,” Prosser said.

Prosser believes that lightning was the cause of the fire, and she said she is considering getting a lightning rod for her house. Last August, a house in a neighborhood close by caught fire when it was struck by lightning. It was one of 25 area fires caused by lightning in 2007, Clark said in a Daily Progress article at the time.

From Albemarle to Fairfax, weather conditions were “severe” with reports of lightning and hail, according to the National Weather Service.

At 2:45 p.m., hail ranging from the size of pennies to ping pong balls rained down on Greene, Orange and Albemarle counties. North of Ruckersville, hail as large as 4 1/4 inches in diameter fell, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm caused extensive damage to trees and brought down power lines in Greene, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

Gretchen Scheuermann, an instructor at the Highlands Golf Park near Ruckersville, said hail covered the driveway and damaged some of the plants as it fell. “It looked like a snowstorm … it was covering everything,” she said.

The National Weather Service forecasts a low chance of precipitation this week with high temperatures in the 70s and 80s, with a 30 percent chance of thunderstorms Saturday night.