Lightning Blamed in Fire

Despite difficult weather conditions Saturday morning, firefighters quickly extinguished a blaze at a bayfront house in Amagansett. The fire started after a lightning strike, Amagansett Fire Chief Bill Beckert said. 

A report of smoke in the area had come in at 6:41 a.m., and first responders were on their way to investigate when 911 dispatchers received word that a roof was on fire at a house on Cross Highway, which runs between the Devon Yacht Club and Fresh Pond, overlooking Gardiner’s Bay. The chief and his brother, Chris Beckert, the department’s second assistant chief, arrived about a minute later, within a few seconds of each other, and saw flames both in and outside the two-story house. 

The homeowner, Linda Alter, met them in the driveway. She told them that loud thunder, and likely the lightning strike, “shook her out of bed,” Chief Beckert said. 

Dwayne Denton, the East Hampton Town fire marshal who investigated the incident, confirmed that lightning had hit a second-floor dormer on the east side of the house, the Gardiner’s Bay side. 

Frequent lightning and heavy rains at times hindered the firefighters, Chief Beckert said. Firefighters were ordered off the house’s roof at one point. Most of their efforts came from “an aggressive interior attack,” the chief said.

The fire was not easy to get to either, due to tongue-and-groove interior construction. Even so, Chief Beckert said, firefighters were able to contain the flames to one bedroom. Part of the dormer was destroyed, and the room below had smoke and water damage, but the fire’s effect on the rest of the house was minimal. 

“If the homeowner wasn’t home, and a neighbor called it in 15 minutes later, this would be a completely different story. We could have lost most of the house,” Chief Beckert said. 

Springs firefighters assisted the Amagansett department at the scene. The East Hampton Fire Department stood by at Amagansett’s firehouse in case another call came in.