ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, June 21, 1996                  TAG: 9606210042
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-1  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER 

LIGHTNING SPARKS HOUSE FIRE

A BOLT OF ELECTRICITY struck a power line near Geraldene Garvey's house and started the fire in a second-floor stairwell.

Warren Hawley had just turned off his air conditioner and television out of respect for a storm that had come up suddenly Thursday afternoon. He was sitting in his den chair, reclining with his shirt off, when he heard the lightning hit.

"I heard a big old crack of lightning, almost knocked me out of my seat," he said.

It was three or four minutes before he figured he ought to check to see if anything was hit along Laconia Avenue Northeast. When he walked outside, he found a neighbor "running around like a chicken with his head off" and talking about a fire at another neighbor's house and how his phone wouldn't work.

Hawley's house hadn't been hit, but a neighbor's had.

The lightning ran into Geraldene Garvey's house at 139 Laconia Ave. on electrical lines, shorting them out and starting the fire in a second-floor stairwell, Roanoke District Fire Chief Garry Basham said. Garvey and her grandson, Zachary Maxey, escaped without injury.

Garvey's house was ablaze when Hawley reached it. A retired firefighter with 30 years' experience, Hawley called 911 on his cordless phone and offered Garvey and her grandson the best advice he had.

"I didn't rescue them or nothing. I just hollered to 'Get the hell out!''' he said.

Garvey already was on her way in that direction. The first neighbor Hawley saw had told her that lightning had hit her house.

"I didn't even know it," Garvey said. She ran outside to see if the man was right, then went back in for her grandson, whom she was keeping that afternoon, her purse and her medication.

Smoke was rolling from the second floor of the house when firefighters arrived, Basham said, but the blaze was under control in about 15 minutes.

Afterward, Garvey seemed shaken but under control until her sister arrived. The two fell into each other's arms and sobbed.

Damage to the house and its contents was estimated at $20,000.

LENGTH: Short :   49 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  ERIC BRADY/Staff. Roanoke firefighters change air tanks 
          while fighting a fire
          Thursday at 139 Laconia Ave. N.E. color.