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Washington Twp. apartment complex fire caused by lightning strike

UPDATE @ 11:45 p.m.:

Some of the biggest damage caused by today’s storms was from lightning, including the apartment complex on Seabreeze Court who saw the most damage due to lightning igniting parts of the roof.

“It’s indescribable. I mean it was really really loud you just heard it sounded like a crash,” said a neighbor.

10 fire trucks and two ambulances were called out to this apartment building around noon on Friday.

“Me and my boyfriend smelled all the smoke coming through our windows, ran downstairs and saw that the backside of this building caught of fire,” said a resident.

Fires happening due to lightning was the story of the day in most of the Miami Valley.

“These thunderstorms intensified very quickly. They were producing a lot of lightning in particular a lot of cloud to ground lightning,” said Chief Meteorologist Eric Elwell.

Lightning caused a lot of damage, however, the Miami Valley was able to avoid the worst of the storms because of rain early in the afternoon.

“It was an incredibly close call we had the instability at least higher up in the atmosphere but because we stayed in the mid-60s through the day we were lucky we did not get the severe weather to the west,” said Elwell.

FIRST REPORT:

Firefighters are on the scene of a fire reported at the Chesapeake Landing Apartments in Washington Twp. Friday afternoon.

LOCAL WEATHER: Strong to severe storms expected today; tornadoes, high winds, and hail possible

Crews responded to the 1600 block of Seabreeze Court around 12:30 p.m. and reported a working fire in the structure.

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Initial reports indicate the fire might have been caused by lightning that struck the building.

There are no reports of any injuries, however firefighters did have to rescue a dog from one of the buildings, firefighters said.

A second alarm has been requested to help fight the blaze, emergency scanner traffic indicates.

We have a crew on the way and we’ll update this page as we learn more.

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