Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA)
By SEAN REAGAN Staff Writer
WORTHINGTON, MA – Lightning kept firefighters on the go Thursday afternoon as they responded to damage from back-to-back strikes.
Firefighters were finishing up at 301 Dingle Road – where a lightning strike caused approximately $1,000 of damage to household appliances, they estimated, when a Hilltown Ambulance crew, on its way back to its Huntington base after ensuring that there were no injuries at Dingle Road, spotted smoke off Route 112 and called in another fire.
At 313 Kinne Brook Road, a free-standing structure owned by Matthew Johnson burned to the ground after being struck by lightning, taking with it a 1968 Camaro, a 1973 Camaro, several snowmobiles and off-road vehicles as well as tools, parts and containers of waste fuels.
The building was a total loss. There were no injuries.
Firefighters from Chesterfield, Goshen and Cummington joined Worthington to help combat the Kinne Brook Road blaze, which started when lightning struck a nearby pine tree, causing it to explode into flames and toppling it into the garage.
Johnson, called from work at Valley Motor Sports in Northampton, fell to his knees when he saw the damage. ”If it wasn’t for my dog who was in the house, I’d rather have seen it go up then this,” he said.
Fire Lt. Ronald McBride, who directed firefighting efforts, said that damages sustained by Johnson were well over $100,000.
Johnson said that the building was insured.
Waste fuel and two cords of firewood kept the blaze going for well over an hour. Firefighters trucked water in via tanker trucks and circled the building repeatedly as smoke billowed into the sky.
”We couldn’t have done it without the response of the neighboring towns,” said McBride. ”This keeps us hopping but it’s what we do. We’re just grateful that there were no injuries.”