Stephen Busker and Judy Confer were pulling out of their driveway Sunday afternoon to head to a friend’s house for a barbecue when lightning struck.

“Boy, that was really close,” Busker recalls saying. What he didn’t realize at the time was that the lightning had struck a palm tree in his backyard.

Busker said he received a call from a neighbor while he was at the barbecue telling him that his house was on fire.

He said the fire department was already there when they got back home.

Assistant Fountain Hills Fire Chief Dave Ott said crews responded to the call reporting the fire at about 4 p.m. The residence is in the 14000 block of Silverado Drive.

Ott said crews responded quickly and the fire was confined to the rear patio and the home’s exterior.

Busker said about three or four trees in the backyard were destroyed as well as everything on the patio, including furniture.

The strike blew out a back patio window and some flames spread to the eaves of the roof.

“This is one of those things that happens to someone else,” Busker said.

See more on this story in Wednesday's edition of The Times.