Lightning strike is likely cause of Vine Grove fire

Officials believe a lightning strike during a storm early Wednesday morning was responsible for a house fire in Vine Grove.

Jeff D'Alessio

This home in Vine Grove was struck by lightning Wednesday morning as a storm rolled through the area.

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The house is on the corner of Deckard School and Rogersville roads, said Capt. Dale Riggs of the Vine Grove Police Department.

High winds overnight reached 50.1 mph at the Kentucky Mesonet site in Cecilia and more than an inch of rain fell in the area.

Mark Adams, supervising meteorological technician at Fort Knox, said radar three miles north of the airfield on post recorded wind gusts as high as 46 mph and 1.05 inches of rain for Tuesday night and early this morning.

The National Weather Service in Louisville issued a tornado watch Tuesday afternoon, which was upgraded to a warning at 12:04 a.m. for northern Hardin County.

Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued at 12:38 a.m. for eastern Hardin County and 1:18 a.m. for eastern LaRue County.

Adams said such warnings are important to keep residents safe when there is even a possibility of severe weather.

“I always tell guys, ‘Don’t wish it away,’” he said.

The county E-911 Center, Emergency Management Department for Hardin County, Kentucky State Police post in Elizabethtown, West Point Police Department and Radcliff Police Department said trees were downed during the storm, but their organizations did not receive any calls about major storm-related damage.

Radcliff Police Department spokesman Bryce Shumate said about 200 residents reported to the city’s storm shelter at the fire station after the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning about 20 minutes before the storm hit.

Mike Callahan, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service in Louisville, said reports throughout the region indicated winds were clocked as high as 70 mph.

A lot of damage was reported in the Jeffersonville and New Albany areas in Indiana, but surveyors were trying to determine the full extent of storm damage, Callahan said.

“We haven’t really determined where the worst damage was yet,” he said.

Adams said severe weather should be expected during this time of year.

“It’s springtime and it’s that season,” he said.

Amber Coulter can be reached at (270) 505-1746 or acoulter@thenewsenterprise.com.