A family brought closer together by one fire has been separated by another.

In March, Keith Moore and his wife Toni lost most of their 58 Elm St. home to a fire. Since then, he has lived with his daughter, Shannon Moody, and her family at their home on 32 N. Mast Road, scarcely a mile away. But now the family again found itself displaced by a fire.

“It rains, it pours,” Moody said.

Fire Chief Rich O’Brien said the investigation into the cause of the June 23 fire indicated it had been caused by lightning. O’Brien said the electricity in the house had been affected by the lightning. Earlier in the day, during lunchtime, he said the fire crew on duty at the Church Street fire station had seen a lightning bolt strike close by.

Something ignited in the basement, sending flames shooting up into the main two floors of the home and the attic. Moody discovered the fire when she was returning to the home about 4:45 in the afternoon. As she approached her kitchen door, she said she saw the smoke.

Moody left her daughter, Kameryn, 3, outside, while she ran in to get her cat Popeye, who was in one of the upper floors. She could not find a second cat, Mystic. Since she knew her family was safe, she said her first thought was of her cats still in the house. Hours after firefighters had extinguished the last hot spot in her house, Mystic was still missing.

A third cat, Lucky, survived the Elm Street fire and was living with relatives in Manchester. After rescuing her other cat, she called her husband, David Moody, who had been doing some cleaning up on the construction site where a new home is being built for his father-inlaw.

Moody and her family rent the North Mast Road home from Jude Charpentier, who said he has not had similar problems with fire and electricity in the past. An annex behind the main part of the house contains five apartments, none of which appeared to be damaged by the fire.

O’Brien said firefighters prevented the fire from spreading beyond the front basement. He said the department planned to return most of the tenants to their apartments in time for the night, but said it would take longer to inspect the safety of the house electrical system for Moody and her parents.

The night of the fire, Moore stayed with his sister-in-law in Sanbornton. He is weeks away from moving back into his reconstructed home on Elm Street. The Red Cross put his daughter up in the Quality in Bedford. She also has relatives with whom she can live in Manchester.

A second strike
On June 22, another Goffstown home was also hit by lightning, bringing out fire fighting power from Goffstown, Bedford, New Boston, Dunbarton and Weare.

The second floor and roof of the home of Craig and Jennifer Hollinrake at 78 Winter Hill Road were severely damaged when a bolt hit the home that afternoon.

O’Brien said the call for that strike came in around 3:30 p.m. from a neighbor who initially thought the lightning struck their own house. The neighbor went outside to investigate and saw smoke coming from the Hollinrake home.

Firefighters were at the home within two or three minutes, O’Brien said, and battled the flames for about an hour before they were smothered. The Hollinrakes were out of town at the time, but their dog, which O’Brien described as a golden lab, was inside the home. Firefighters were able to gain entry into the home before the flames overwhelmed the home and got the dog out safely.

The hole in the roof where the bolt hit was about 18 inches in diameter, O’Brien said.

Firefighters have to take extra caution with fires caused by lightning strikes due to the heightened risk of “hidden fires” inside the walls and ceiling of the structure hit.

O’Brien said there was nothing unique about the home that would attract the lightning, adding there are trees taller than the home in the yard as well as utility poles nearby with transformers.

“By looking at the strike area, it centered around the electrical system right there, and there was significant damage to the wiring. It also targeted the copper pipes to the baseboard heating,” said O’Brien. “It was looking for a ground and it found it, one way or another.”

Staff writer Jenn McDowell contributed to this story.