A Wrexham family's terror when a lightening strike set their home on fire
A family told of their terror after a lightning strike hit their home in the middle of he night, causing a part of their roof on fire.
Megan Zahra was sleeping in the annexe at the family home in Bowling Bank, Wrexham, when a bolt that sounded "like a bomb going off" hit the roof and sparked a blaze.
Mum Angela Rhodes and step-dad Neil Rhodes had been woken in the main house building by the storm raging overhead in the early hours of this morning, when the lightning struck.
The strike was so powerful it also knocked out some lights, the boiler and a TV in the main house which is situated yards away.
Mrs Rhodes said: "We woke up about 1am and there was an almighty storm overhead, the noise and the lightning was unbelievable.
"We were watching it out the window and then suddenly it was like a bomb went off - I have never heard anything like it in my life.
"And my husband, who never jumps, jumped out of his skin and he said 'that's hit something'.
Mr Rhodes looked out the window and saw what appeared to be a street light type glow on the annexe.
"He got to the back door and just shouted 'dial 999'," said Mrs Rhodes: "And ran across to the annexe, banged on the door and said 'Megan get out it's on fire'.
Megan was already awake, she had heard the noise, but hadn't realised the lightning had sheared through a beam and set the roof on fire. She then fled the building.
Mr Rhodes tried to tackle the blaze with a hosepipe before the fire service arrived and extinguished it.
"It was just simmering from the inside in the roof. The roof didn't look damaged, I don't know how the lightning got through, but the fire service said it had sliced through the main beam."
Megan, 23, who used to play as a goalkeeper for Manchester United in the Girls Centre for Excellence, had recently come home from a five-year stay in Australia, and was staying in the annexe.
She said: "It was like a massive gunshot - you could feel it in your chest."You wouldn't have thought it would be in the annexe, so I checked out the window and couldn't see anything, so I got back in to bed.
"Then my step-dad came and said I needed to get out.
"I was a bit shocked, you don't expect something like that to happen, but I still went to work at 5am and got on with it."
Mrs Rhodes added: "Me and Megan are best friends. It just don't bear thinking about if anything worse had happened.
"Everybody says that lightning never strikes in the same place, but how are you going to sit through a storm now? I am dreading it."
A North Wales Fire and Rescue Service spokeman said: "We were called at 1.25am to reports that a roof was on fire after being hit by lightning.
"Two appliances from Wrexham went to the scene and used two hose reels and two breathing apparatus to deal with it.
"It caused 50% fire damage to the roof of the property."
Elsewhere in Wales, people reported loud thunderclaps and bright lightening coupled with heavy rain.
Anthony Britner took some incredible photographs of the thunderstorm from his home in Wrexham.
People across Wales commented on social media on the ferocity of the storm.
Thunderstorms moved into Wales late on Tuesday morning, coming after a day or record temperatures. The Met Office issued a yellow warning which is in place until 9am on Wednesday.