Lightning produced by an intense thunderstorm raking its way across south-central St. Tammany Parish Wednesday sparked flames in three homes and one marsh in the Mandeville and Lacombe areas.

At 4:07 p.m., Fire Protection District 4 responded to its first call at 8086 Winners Circle in Mandeville after an apparent lightning strike splintered a nearby pine tree then jumped to the attic of the home, starting a fire.

According to Chief Rick Tassin, the 25 personnel tending the fire had to work fast to get the flames under control because there was a risk the fire could spread to the neighboring home. After the structure suffered major damage to the roof and upper floor of the home, the fire was extinguished with one minor injury sustained by a firefighter. The cost of the damage has not yet been determined. Just nine minutes after receiving the first call, FPD4 responded to a second residential structure fire at 200 Lafayette St. Thirteen fire personnel arrived on scene to find the home emitting heavy smoke from an unknown source.

It took several minutes for the crew to find the fire located between the roof and a false dormer window extending into the attic. The flames were extinguished with no injuries and minor damage to the house.

In Lacombe, a detached garage on Mandane Drive and a section of Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge ignited thanks to lightning.

According to Chief Chuck Flynn of Fire Protection District 3, about a dozen firefighters were on their way to the marsh after a call came in around 4 p.m. On the way there, they happened upon the garage fire.

“They both happened at the same time, and we just found the second one by chance,” said Flynn. “The garage caught fire after lightning struck the soffit and fascia.”

The marsh fire consumed about an acre, and while it was fairly close to several homes on Lake Road, the driving rainstorm helped extinguish the blaze quickly.

“Luckily the rain was moving in the same direction as the lightening,” said NWR Fire Management Officer Mark Jamieson. “A couple of years ago we had a similar situation, and the storm moved away from the strike, and the damage was much worse.”

Both fires were contained in about half an hour. There were no injuries in either blaze, and Flynn estimates the garage sustained “a few hundred dollars” in damages.

Meteorologist Michael Koziara with the National Weather Service in Slidell said there might not be much you can do to protect structures from lightning strikes, but there are precautions people can do to protect themselves from experiencing heat hotter than the surface of the sun, about 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Go indoors, don’t stand in open areas such as a golf course,” he said. “You don’t want to get under a tree because a tree is an elevated structure and lightning takes the shortest path.”

Another good place to be, Koziara said, is a car because it’s grounded.

“The bottom line is you don’t want to be outside when you have a thunderstorm and you’re getting frequent lightning discharges,” he said.

Koziara also said residents can expect to see this type of weather for the next several days with above 50 percent chances through the weekend.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Louisiana ranks sixth in the country with 116 deaths caused by lightning from 1959 to 1994.