Gardai at a Covid-19 checkpoint helped save a family home from destruction after a “freak” lightning strike saw it catch fire.
Kevin Clifford and his wife Breda have been left devastated after the “one in a million chance” incident at their house near Kilbehenny, Co Limerick resulted in thousands of euro worth of damage.
Five fire engines tackled the blaze for more than three hours and it’s likely the couple’s entire roof will need to be replaced.
Mr Clifford said: “Lightning hit the house basically. It bust out the gable-end wall and set fire to our roof.
"The sitting room, it’s burnt the roof off that. It’s burnt half the roof off the house.”
When the incident occurred at around 5pm last Saturday, Mr Clifford was out changing a tyre on his quad bike with his wife inside their home.
He said: “The guards were on a checkpoint near enough to us so they were here within a matter of seconds.
"The fire brigade were here within 20 minutes of it happening. So the response was very good in fairness.
“It’s not the thing you expect to happen at all.
“The fire brigade told me there’s a one in a million chance of this. It’s very rare.”
Mr Clifford said an insurance assessor is due out to the home and he hopes that he will be covered.
He added: “There’d be a fair bit of work to be done.”
