Marble – Officials determined that lightning struck near a mobile home Thursday, marking the second time in as many weeks that weather caused a house fire.
Firefighters were dispatched to 756 Long Branch Road around 2:30 p.m., where they found a doublewide mobile home engulfed in flames. The first fire crew arrived on scene within seven minutes of the call to dispatch, and firefighters used about 7,000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze.
“The 911 caller stated that the front porch was on fire at the time of dispatch,” Peachtree volunteer assistant fire chief Bradley Bailey said. “Oxygen quickly spread into the living room and throughout the house.”
A man accused of raping his own 17-year-old daughter lived in the mobile home prior to being incarcerated last fall. Officials say Robert Eugene Barnhill, 47, lived in the property until his arrest on Sept. 28. He remains held in the Cherokee County Detention Center in Murphy on a $250,000 secured bond.
“Due to those circumstances, we had the sheriff’s office investigate for any possible arson,” Bailey said. “The State Bureau of Investigation used a lightning radar and determined there was a lightning strike within 30 feet of that vicinity within six minutes prior to the 911 call.”
Bailey said it’s “not uncommon” for lightning storms to destroy houses in this county.
Around the same time as the Long Branch Road fire, volunteers were sent to a house in Valleytown, where lightning had struck a propane line. In addition, lightning destroyed a wooden single-family home on Scenic View Drive on March 16.
“It happens quite a bit in the summer months,” Bailey said. “You just never know [how often it might happen in a season]. We might get 20 lightning strikes this summer, and next summer we might not get any.”
Firefighters also battled a blaze Thursday morning on June Apple Lane. Officials say an electric heating lamp mostly likely caused a shed fire around 3:45 a.m.
“It’s a total loss,” Bailey said about the shed.