United States (South Carolina) - Local firefighters are getting sick of the weather forecast they see each day calling for daily afternoon thunderstorms that lately have led to daily lightning fires. The Irmo Fire District worked one major structural fire three straight nights, along with dozens of less serious lightning-related calls. Lexington County Fire Service handled two major lightning fires Monday and another Tuesday that destroyed buildings.

Add one each in Columbia and West Columbia, and that's eight major structural fires in three days in a small geographic area, compared with 118 structural lightning fires in the entire state in all of 2009, according to the state fire marshal's office.

The S.C. Insurance News Service polled insurance providers in the state Tuesday and found lightning-related claims are up about 60 percent this July compared with last July, said executive director Russ Dubisky. And more lightning fires are reported in July and August in South Carolina than any other months.

Buildings aren't the only targets getting hit more often this stormy summer. The S.C. Forestry Commission reported 30 lightning-caused wildfires in June burning 290.5 acres, compared with nine wildfires burning 10.5 acres in June 2009.

Don't tell firefighters this is a normal summer thunderstorm season.

"It seems like it's a little bit different lightning than we usually see," said Eddie Turner, chief of the Lexington County Fire Service. "You see it come down, and you see it hit something.

"The storms just seem to sit in one place, and the volume of rain has been more concentrated. I couldn't see to drive to the fire on Jessamine (Drive) Tuesday."

Irmo Fire Chief Mike Sonefeld isn't so sure the storms are different; he just knows they've been a menace.

"For years, it seemed we used to get hammered like this in Irmo, but we've been in a lull for several years," Sonefeld said.

The lull definitely ended this summer, especially this week. The storms Sunday, Monday and Tuesday prompted hundreds of calls to local fire departments. Sonefeld's crews raced to several homes where lightning had blown sheetrock off the walls and doors off their hinges, "but there's no fire, no ignition. You just never know," he said.

Those are the lucky people. At the other end of the spectrum in Irmo were the residents of the Cricket Hill Apartments (Sunday) and homes on Chadford Road (Monday) and Loch Road (Tuesday), all with major structural damage. In the Lexington area, the most severe damage was to a house in Round Hill (Monday) and commercial buildings near Lexington (Monday) and in Oak Grove (Tuesday).

The West Columbia Fire Department doused a fire Monday that damaged the steeple to the Greenhill Baptist Church. And the Columbia Fire Department put out a lightning fire Tuesday that caused about $50,000 damage to a home in the Summit subdivision.

While lightning fires aren't common, lighting hitting structures is routine. The National Lightning Safety Institute estimates one out of every 200 houses in the U.S. gets hit by lightning each year. The quirks of lightning -- the less common positively charged lightning is considered more likely to cause fires than the more common negatively charged lightning, and all lightning would rather be grounded than start a fire -- mean most strikes don't cause fires.

But those bolts that spark flames can be devastating. Last year, lightning structural fires caused $4 million in damage and one death in South Carolina, according to the state fire marshal. Lightning caused 2.6 percent of all structural fires in the state last year.

"The biggest problems with lightning strikes is they usually hit attic areas," Sonefeld said. "That's a horrible place for a fire to start. We're usually going to have to fight those from underneath, and they usually have a head start."

Many new buildings aren't structurally sound enough for firefighters to risk heading inside when the attic is completely engulfed, and the fire is much more difficult to control only from the outside.

Flames were shooting out of the gables of the building on Jessamine Road in the Oak Grove area Tuesday before firefighters arrived. The fire already covered the entire length of the building before any water was poured on it, Turner said. His firefighters worked nearly five hours on that fire, finally getting back to the station around 10 p.m.

"I know they're tired, but it looks like we have a possibility for more (Wednesday)," Turner said with a tone of exhaustion.

The busy week had Turner looking at ways to adapt to this summer's storms. If they continue to hit more concentrated areas, maybe the fire service should be paying closer attention to weather radar. They might be able to move trucks from stations in clear areas to those where storms pop up before the lightning strikes, he said.

Homeowners can't completely protect themselves against lightning strike fires, but there are some measures that reduce the chances, said state fire marshal John Reich. Correctly installed, a lightning rod (technically, a strike termination device) helps catch lightning and ground it without going through the building.

Surge protectors installed where electrical lines enter the house can reduce spark threats, and surge protectors at outlets can protect electrical devices. While the lightning itself should be enough to startle anyone in a house, smoke alarms are crucial because lightning-caused fires smolder out of sight as often as they burst into flames quickly, Reich said.

Homeowners can help fire officials by being patient and realistic. A power line down in the middle of a yard isn't going to be a priority if flames are coming out of a house a few miles away. This week, Turner said, firefighters have had to set those sorts of priorities.

Written by The State