Tell Me About Lightning.

[LarkspurCO]

I guess it is good advice, but if I stayed inside any time a storm was within 10 miles I would be indoors from noon until sundown every day, all summer long.

That said, I did have lightning strike my fence out of the clear blue sky and start a fire at my old property. My neighbor ran over an helped me put it out, but it was in the pine forest during a drought, and had it gotten out of control it would have been something like the fire in Black Forest last summer.

I moved out of the trees after that.

Oh, and I do not have lightning rods. My barn and house are at the base of a butte, and I have seen lightning strike the top of the butte many times.

[JanM]

Petey-effectiveness of lightning rods depends on installation, and on the specific grounding used for the soil type. Florida is the lightning capitol of the U.S., and there is a university that studies lightning extensively, and they published a report that says the straight ground copper poles don’t work in sandy soil, that a big loop buried is for that type of ground. And badly installed lightning rods are useless. I guess you need to find a real expert.

[onthebit]

A barn that I boarded my horse at many years ago burned to the grown a couple of years ago from a lightning strike. It did have lightning rods so either they were not properly installed or they simply are not foolproof. The horses that were on night turnout were fine but the horses in the barn all perished.

[Chall]

Somewhere I read lightening rods attached to houses couldn’t contain the voltage of strikes . The recommendation was a free standing lightening pole a certain distance from any building.
I don’t think I can find that reference again though.