Lightning Strike May Have Sparked Massive Fire At Clifton Heights Apartment, Neighbors Say
DELAWARE COUNTY, Pa. (CBS) - Fire investigators are looking for the cause of a raging apartment fire in Clifton Heights, Delaware County. People who live in the apartment building say they saw lightning in the sky, just before flames broke out on the 400 block of South Springfield Road, just after 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
A neighbor tells Eyewitness News she thinks lightning hit a metal pole near the top of the building.
"I was sitting around, like 9 o'clock last night, I heard this rumbling," resident Courtney Cherry said. "When I looked outside, I did see a streak of lightning coming all around, and you can literally see it dragging. I'm not sure if it's a metal pole, right here, that's what I'm assuming. That's what it might have hit over here to start that fire. You could hear it, it was literally shaking and making all this weird noise. That's what made me look outside."
Most of the top of the building is charred from the fast-moving fire.
Officials say there was some difficulty in bringing the blaze under control because the residence sits on top of a hill. Fire trucks had to maneuver through a rear alley to get to the flames.
No one was injured, but Tuesday night's storm also toppled trees and left thousands of people without power across the region, including in Alden, Delaware County.
"There's no electricity. I'm 73 years old, what am I gonna do?" SAID
Eyewitness News found utility crews hustling in the heat trying to quickly restore power. But several thousand homes and businesses sweltered in the summer sun with no electricity for much of the day.
"Feels like 100 degrees," SAID
So some took refuge under the shade.
"On a hot day like today, mainly just playing outside and reading books," Sadie Hughes said.
While others went splashing around at the Clifton Heights Swim Club, trying to beat the heat.
The people who lived at the apartment building are being relocated to another building owned by the property group. The building is condemned as investigators try to figure out if lightning from the storm started the fire.
