Neighbour warns family about lightning strike blaze

A man whose house was struck by lightning said if it was not for a neighbour banging on his door about a blaze in his roof, the ceiling "could have collapsed on us".

Ali Shah, 59, said his wife and daughter were woken by a storm early in the morning in Watford after it tripped the electrics.

The family went back to bed, but 10 minutes later a neighbour warned them to get out of the house.

Mr Shah said there was "a lot of damage", but his family was "unbelievably fortunate".

Hertfordshire fire service sent four vehicles and an aerial platform to the house on Cassiobury Drive just before 05:30 BST.

The Met Office issued a number of thunderstorm warnings for the area during the night, with them continuing into Thursday, external.

Mr Shah, a technology consultant, said the alarm in his house started bleeping when the electrics went off.

"I thought nothing more of it and went back to bed," he said.

"Ten minutes later I heard a banging on the door. I came down and a woman said there was smoke billowing out of your house - 'You need to get out now.'"

He said a policeman happened to be passing by and helped the family escape, and the fire service turned up about five minutes later.

Crews took about 45 minutes to put out the blaze.

"The fire officer said if that lady had not knocked on the door and you had gone back to sleep, the roof could have collapsed on us."

Watch commander Mark Woodward, from Watford Fire Station, said: "Our crews were faced with a fairly substantial fire in the roof.

"We sent in two teams in breathing apparatus to attack the fire from inside the building, and they were able to successfully stop the fire before it spread too far.

"From talking to the residents and looking at the pattern of the fire, we believe the fire was started by a lightning strike."

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