WINDERMERE, Fla. --
The State Fire Marshal says lightning likely started a fire that destroyed a Windermere mansion. The fire started on the roof of the house on Oxford Moor Boulevard
Monday night and quickly tore through the 6,000 square foot estate.
Fire investigators even called Severe Weather Center 9 to ask meteorologist Tom Terry to use the station's Doppler radar to determine how many lightening strikes hit the area around the Windermere home. Based on that information, the State Fire Marshal determined one of the strikes hit the top of the home.
Firefighters were still at the scene Tuesday morning, keeping an eye out for hot spots that could reignite. Orange County firefighters told Eyewitness News that the home may have been burning for quite a while before they got the call. It took firefighters nearly an hour to get the fire under control.
"Flames were shooting clean over the house," neighbor Kent Keoppel said.
Keoppel was driving home when he noticed the fire in his neighborhood from nearly two miles away. As he got closer, he realized his neighbor's home was ablaze.
"When I got in the neighborhood, I went around the street walking around the house," Keoppel said. "You could feel the heat got very intense."
As firefighters tried to put out the fire, the roof collapsed.
"At the point when it went through the roof, at that point, it was pretty much deemed unsurvivable," an Orange County Fire Department spokesman said.
When the roof caved in, it became impossible for firefighters to go inside to search for people and animals. Eyewitness News found out that the family who lives in the home is out of the country on vacation.
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