A family which slept through a lightning strike wants to thank a stranger who knocked on the door - and 'saved their life'.
Dad Ali Shah, 59, had a random woman bang urgently on his door in the early morning to tell him there was black smoke "billowing" out of his home in Watford, Hertfordshire. He was in bed and unaware of the danger in the room above his and his wife's bedroom - terrifyingly later told by fire services that the ceiling could have collapsed if they'd stayed another ten minutes.
Thankfully, Mr Shah and his wife, 66, and daughter, 32, emerged unscathed from the house - though the property incurred damage of up to £60,000. Mr Shah, a technology consultant, said that though he'd heard the powerful lightning strike, he didn't think it was their home it had hit.
Four fire engines had rushed to tackle the blaze at the six-bedroom property home last week (May 2) during a Met Office yellow weather warning. Mr Shah, who had gone back to bed after the strike, described his shock at being awoken at around 5am by a woman at his door telling him to get out of his home.
Ali has described his family's lucky escape (Ali Shah/SWNS)The dad-of-three said: "It was a really severe thunderstorm. It was about 430 in the morning. We are up at that sort of time for morning prayers, and the thunder would have woken us up anyway. There was a particularly loud crack, and after I heard an alarm beeping.
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"None of the lights would turn on, so I flicked the mains switch. I went back to bed but heard some loud banging at the door. My wife didn't want me to answer it, but I went to investigate. There was a lady who just said, 'Get out of the house, there's thick black smoke coming out of your roof."
Mr Shah went to investigate the smoke coming from the loft room and though he couldn't see any evidence of a fire, his wife said she could smell smoke. "The lady wasn't wrong," he said. "It was not a pretty sight. I came back downstairs, went out the front door, took a few steps back and looked up and it was a frightening scene," he said.
"There was really thick black smoke just billowing out." An alarmed Mr Shah awoke his daughter and rushed out into the pouring rain where they saw a passing policeman before fire crews arrived minutes later. The devastated family then watched on in horror from out of a neighbour's window as firefighters battled to control the blaze inside and outside of their home for as long as three hours.
Despite the hard luck of having their home hit by lightning - which could cost more than £60,000 to fix - Mr Shah says he's merely grateful no one was harmed in the fire. "When it's your home, it's a terrible thing," he said. "But we were unbelievably lucky. Luckily the lady alerted us. That lady was providence... We went back to bed.
Ali Shah's model railway set which was destroyed in the fire (Ali Shah/SWNS)"I'm extremely grateful to that woman and to the emergency services who did an amazing job. We are extremely fortunate to all be fine." The lightning strike wrecked the family's loft, which they used as a cinema and which also housed a model railway that took Mr Shah months to construct during the pandemic.
The master bedroom is located directly underneath the loft, and Mr Shah says firefighters told him the ceiling collapsing on him and his wife could have been the first they would've learned of the fire if they'd stayed in bed, as they wouldn't have been able to feel the heat from above them.
Mr Shah has appealed for the heroic woman who alerted them to the blaze to come forward so he can thank her in person. The family has now been able to move back into the property, where they have lived since around 2011, but the damage caused by the lightning bolt will likely take months to fix and is now expected to cost more than an initial estimate of £60,000.
"The loft is absolutely gutted," Mr Shah added. "It's quite a frightening sight. We were very lucky and fortunate, but also really unlucky because lightning strikes to houses and rare. We were both lucky and unlucky, really."
Watch commander Mark Woodward, from Watford Fire Station, said: "Our crews faced a fairly substantial fire in the roof of the property. We sent two teams to tackle the fire, and they were able to enter the building using breathing apparatus, and successfully stop the fire before it spread too far.
"Fortunately, a passer-by had alerted the residents to the fire, and everyone was safely out of the building when we arrived. From talking to residents and looking at the pattern of the fire, we believe the fire was started by a lightning strike."
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