People in a remote area of Northern California claim that a meteor struck a house, causing it to burn to the ground. Authorities say they are considering the said reason as more witnesses back up the claim.
The meteor-stricken house is located in a rural area in Nevada County, where most residents raise cattle for a living. There has been very little news from this remote location before a meteor allegedly set a house ablaze.
Started with a 'Big Bang'
When authorities interrogated the owner of the house, Dustin Procita, he said he heard a "big bang" before smelling smoke coming from the house. He then went out onto his porch to find the entire house engulfed in flames.
Friday at 7:26 pm, CAL FIRE responded with Penn Valley FPD to a Residential Structure Fire near Lake Englebright. E2354 arrived first reporting a well involved trailer and vehicle, with no threat to vegetation. The fire was contained, committing resources for approx. 4 hours. pic.twitter.com/WPfjtZcLj8
- CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit (@CALFIRENEU) November 5, 2022
To witness a meteorite impacting the ground is extremely rare; in fact, some of us may have never seen one. As it turns out, 'shooting stars' falling to the ground is not that rare, with Iberdrola reporting that approximately 17,000 meteorites fall to Earth each year.
One factor contributing to their apparent invisibility and 'rarity' is their size, which decreases as they travel through the Earth's atmosphere until they almost go barely perceptible.
It is indeed a rare occurence for a meteor to hit the ground and cause sizable damage.
The flames that engulfed the ranch-area house took several hours for firefighters to completely put out. Witnesses compared the meteor that struck the house to a burning basketball that was falling from the sky. A bright ball of light that was seen on cars and home videos fell in the middle of nowhere, according to KCRA. Procita is convinced that a meteor struck his home.
The fire destroyed the entire house, and along with their belongings, a dog died in flames. The family has already begun raising funds to help them recover from the unfortunate incident.
Taurid meteor showers are currently observable in the area, with the peak occurring on Saturday. As per NASA, there will be an increase in the number of bright balls visible in the sky.
A History of Deadly Meteorites
Probably one of the biggest and most feared impactors that science has been able to detect is the Chicxulub. The name may not ring a bell, but it is the asteroid or comet that crashed into Earth about 66 million years ago and put an end to the dinosaurs.
The Harvard Gazette tells us that Chicxulub was ten miles wide and big enough to carve a crater that is now the Gulf of Mexico and trigger a mass extinction event.
This one is a little more recent; the largest asteroid impact recorded in modern times occurred in Siberia 114 years ago today. According to EarthSky, the blast produced enough energy to kill reindeer and flatten an estimated 80 million trees across an area of 830 square miles.
It is fortunate that the impact known as the "Tunguska explosion" occurred in a remote area where few people go. If it happened in busy areas like New York, which has a land area of more than 300 square miles, it would completely devastate the city, vaporizing everything within the impact radius.
