Lightning strikes church steeple, major fire in Wilson County

Firefighters responded to a fire at Spring Hill Presbyterian Church in Wilson County on Thursday afternoon after lightning struck its steeple.

The fire took place on Springfield School Road, where several bystanders saw smoke and flames coming from the building.

Firefighters needed to break through the stained-glass windows in the sanctuary to enter the building.

It took over an hour and involved eight different departments to bring the fire under control, with more than a dozen fire trucks on site.

Church members arrived promptly and managed to salvage as much furniture as possible.

“The lightning hit the steeple, the steeple caught on fire. The inside, the flames just kept coming up. The steeple fell and once the steeple fell the fire just kept coming up,” Courtney Barfield, Neighbor said. “All we can do is pray, because there is not very much we can do. We are just very fortunate and very blesses no one was inside at the time.”

The building has been declared a total loss.

WRAL News was told that this is a close-knit community, with locals rallying around the church members as they work on rebuilding from this incident.