‘BIG BANG’: Meteor destroyed man's California home?
“Everyone I talked to said it was a flaming ball falling from the sky and landed in that general area.”
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Did a meteor fall from space and cause a massive fire that destroyed a California man’s home?
Dustin Procita, a rancher in Nevada County, wasn’t sure what had hit his home on Friday night until after firefighters put out the blaze.
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“I heard a big bang,” Procita told KCRA. “I started to smell smoke and I went on to my porch and it was completely engulfed in flames.”
The structure burned to the ground after the object — which witnesses saw flash across the sky — slammed into his house.
“Meteorite, asteroid — one of those two,” Capt. Josh Miller, of the Penn Valley Fire Department, told the news outlet. “I had one individual tell me about it first and like, ‘OK, I’ll put that in the back of my mind.’
“But then more people — two, three or four more — started coming in and talking about it.”
Miller added: “Everyone I talked to said it was a flaming ball falling from the sky and landed in that general area.”
Procita had just gone inside and was on his couch when the apparent meteor hit his home.
The house was instantly engulfed in flames, and crews battled the fire for several hours.
Procita was able to save one of his dogs but he was unable to get to the second one, according to a GoFundMe campaign created by his mother.
But after seeing footage others had taken of the incident, he counts himself “lucky that it was 30 feet away from me and not five.”
The farmer admitted he was shocked when they said it was a meteor.
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“I watched meteor showers and stuff as a kid,” he said, “but I definitely didn’t look forward to them landing in my yard, or through my roof.”
The investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing and could take up to two weeks.
Procita was able to joke about the so-called lucky fireball destroying his home.
“They say it’s a 1 in 4 trillion chance, so I guess I might be buying a lottery ticket today.”
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