HOUSTON — A fire at condo in the Sharpstown area may have been caused by lightning as thunderstorms moved through Houston Saturday.
Esin Murillo said it was raining when he saw flashes of lightning and then heard two loud pops around 3:15 p.m.
"It was two lightning strikes. One I don’t know where the other hit, just know one hit on top of the house which is what caused the fire which started in the kitchen, I started smelling some smoke right after," he said.
Murillo said he had to find his frightened cat before escaping from the smoke and flames with his parents.
"That’s all I was thinking about was getting out of here," Murillo said. "I moved pretty fast and I got everything I could, the important stuff and my cat. He got scared, he was hiding somewhere, and I was still suffocating just trying to get him."
The fire caused extensive damage to the home on Harbor Town and part of the roof collapsed.
No one was hurt but Murillo's spirit was crushed at the sight of Mother Nature’s wrath, and the thought of having to rebuild from the ashes.
"I'm kind of sad because I don’t know what to do anymore, I don’t know where we’re going to go or how we’re going to start again," he said.
The Murillo family is living in a temporary unit while they figure out what’s next.
KHOU 11 reached out to the Houston Fire Department which hasn’t confirmed whether or not lightning started the fire.