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A structure fire caused by a lightning strike destroyed a hay barn near the Old Tait Ranch House located on Old Tait Ranch Road on Wednesday, Sept. 25.
The Columbus Volunteer Fire Department was dispatched to the scene of the fire after a visiting firefighter from England called in to report the blaze after seeing lightning strike the structure.
On arrival, the Columbus VFD found a hay barn engulfed in flames and extinguished the connecting structures to isolate the fire from spreading further.
Garwood VFD and Rock Island VFD were called on scene for tanker support, the Colorado County Sheriff’s office to investigate the fire’s cause, and Colorado County EMS for assistance.
The property owners of the structure, Bob Tait and family, were unaware of the blaze until alerted to it by those on scene after the call was placed indicating the fire to the Columbus VFD.
Richard LaCourse, Assistant Fire Chief at the Columbus VFD, says the investigation into the cause of the fire went swift, as the rampant lightning storm that evening was too big of a coincidence to not have been the cause.
“After the big storm that night there was a lot of lightning and heavy rain, more than likely it was a lightning strike in that structure. It was just a storage building for hay. There is no doubt in our mind that this was accidental, it is too coincidental that we had a lightning storm right before that.”
