{"id":217060,"date":"2026-06-12T02:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T02:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/217060\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T02:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T02:41:07","slug":"lightning-hits-99-year-old-peckville-church-crews-rush-to-fight-flames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/217060\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning hits 99-year-old Peckville church; crews rush to fight flames"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lightning struck a nearly century-old Blakely church Thursday night, sending flames shooting through the steeple.<\/p>\n<p>Dan Horn, who lives near the building at 545 Keystone Ave. in the borough\u2019s Peckville section, was returning from work at about 8:30 p.m. when he heard the sound of lightning hitting a building. Within minutes, he said, the church was engulfed in flames, and firefighters soon rushed to the scene.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Firefighters fight flames at a church building in Peckville on...\" class=\"size-article_inline\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STT-L-PECKVILLEFIRE-0612-03-1.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Firefighters fight flames at a church building in Peckville on Thursday evening, June 11, 2026. The building was hit by lightening and minutes later burst into flames. (COURTESY OF DAN HORN)\n<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Firefighters fight flames at a church building in Peckville on...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STT-L-PECKVILLEFIRE-0612-02.jpg?w=620\"  bad-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STT-L-PECKVILLEFIRE-0612-02.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Firefighters fight flames at a church building in Peckville on Thursday evening, June 11, 2026. The building was hit by lightening and minutes later burst into flames. (COURTESY OF DAN HORN)\n<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Firefighters fight flames at a church building in Peckville on...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STT-L-PECKVILLEFIRE-0612-01.jpg?w=620\"  bad-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STT-L-PECKVILLEFIRE-0612-01.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Firefighters fight flames at a church building in Peckville on Thursday evening, June 11, 2026. The building was hit by lightening and minutes later burst into flames. (COURTESY OF DAN HORN)\n<\/p>\n<p>Show Caption<\/p>\n<p>1 of 3<\/p>\n<p>Firefighters fight flames at a church building in Peckville on Thursday evening, June 11, 2026. The building was hit by lightening and minutes later burst into flames. (COURTESY OF DAN HORN)\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#\" class=\"icon-enlarge mng-gallery-fullscreen-expand\" aria-label=\"Expand fullscreen slideshow\">Expand<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Flames shot from the upper windows of the building and heavy smoke filled the area near the church, as firefighters poured water onto the structure to quell the flames.<\/p>\n<p>Records at the Lackawanna County recorder of deeds office list the owner as Clark Country LLC, a firm operated by Terry and Rebecca Drost, the pastors of Peckville Assembly of God.<\/p>\n<p>Built in 1927, the church served as the longtime place of worship for Peckville Assembly of God until that congregation relocated to Business Route 6 in 2008, according to The Times-Tribune\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n<p>Staff reporter Frank Lesnefsky contributed to this article.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lightning struck a nearly century-old Blakely church Thursday night, sending flames shooting through the steeple. Dan Horn, who&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[182,139,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-217060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}