An apparent lightning strike destroyed a home in Fountain Hills on Saturday evening, July 16.

Emergency personnel were called to the scene about 8:45 p.m. for reported smoke coming from the roof. The garage and upper levels of the hillside walkout residence in the 15600 block of Centipede Drive were demolished by the fire.

Fountain Hills Rural/Metro Assistant Fire Chief Mike Winters said the first units on the scene reported the structure was fully involved in fire with the roof collapsed.

Units from both Fountain Hills fire stations, Rural/Metro Station 826 and Rio Verde Fire District responded to fight the fire, Winters said. Firefighters cleared the scene at about 2:20 a.m. on Sunday.

Neighbors reported hearing a loud boom before the fire was noticed. No one was home at the residence at the time of the fire.

The monsoon storm moving through the area Saturday evening brought no measurable rain to Fountain Hills, but a lot of thunder and lightning.

Other storm

Commuters from Fountain Hills into the East Valley found their route along the Beeline Highway closed on Monday morning following a storm Sunday night that brought down power lines onto the highway.

That storm left almost 1.5 inches of rain at a Maricopa County Flood Control District monitoring site at the Salt River Landfill on the Beeline at Gilbert Road. The winds were strong enough to take down steel power transmission towers along the route.

Again, Fountain Hills received no measurable rainfall from the Sunday storm.