A young Auckland family who have been left with just the clothes they were wearing after a fire tore through their home, had been struck by lightning at a previous house.
And Muriwai fire chief Phelan Pirrie says it's lucky that neither Nat Te Hei or her children were home at the time as he doubts they would have got out alive.
The brigade, and five other appliances, were called to her Domain Cres home about 5.40pm.
By the time they got there the two-storey home was well involved in fire.
Pirrie said the fire appeared to have begun around the fireplace on the bottom storey.