SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio — A lightning strike may be to blame for a fire last night in South Euclid. There were more than 300 lightning strikes in the area that happened in a 30-minute time frame around 9 p.m.
As the rain cleared after severe storms swept through Sunday evening, clouds of smoke started to fill an industrial park in the 4100 block of Greenvale Road in south Euclid.
"I heard a boom, and I thought it was a firework, then looking outside," said Brain Fuchik. "The building started smoking."
Fuchik ran outside and started recording Carl DiFranco Plumbing as flames grew in strength.
"The smell was nasty, burning rubber; maybe that was the PVC burning or something," said Fuchik.
Scott Sebastian with South Euclid Fire believes a lightning strike ignited the flames, but they're still investigating.
"We had two other transformers in our city that got struck, so we have some power outages in our city right now," said Sebastian. "That's why we are thinking area what could have happened."
Eight agencies responded to the fire, and it took over three hours to extinguish, which Sebastian said was a long time.
"There were a lot of items inside the building, where the fire was hidden, and we couldn't really get to it with our ariel ladders and our like bigger streams of water," Sebastian added.
Burning propane tanks and PVC pipes added fuel to the fire, making it difficult to extinguish. Sebastian said the building, however, was up to code. Commercial buildings less than 12,000 sq ft, like Carl DiFranco Plumbing, aren't required to have fire systems.
"That fire alarm system would have activated us a lot quicker than just having a passer-by kind of noticing the smoke," said Sebastian.
The business owner didn't want to get on camera today but tells News 5 he's devastated. He's had the business for almost 40 years.
"Thank God they came out and were able to respond and make sure nobody was hurt," Fuchik added. "That's the most important thing."
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
