In the summer of 2017 I witness one of those really strange occurances. A lightning strike set the neighbor’s yard on fire. Or at least that is what it looked like.
It turned out the lighting current went out into the yard via the steel gas line and it actually ignited a gas line fire in the front yard.
This week I spoke to a DTE technician who said they see those about every summer. Fortunately no one was hurt, it just brought some extra excitement to the neighborhood till the DTE crew could come out, dig up the yard, and shut off the gas.