The fire was reported at 7:25 p.m. near the Mooney Flat area in Nevada County, Penn Valley District Fire Captain Clayton Thomas told SFGATE on Monday. Homeowner Dustin Procita was inside when the fire broke out and believes it was caused by a meteorite landing on his roof. “I heard a big bang,” he told KCRA. “I started smelling smoke. I went out on my porch and it was completely engulfed in flames.” Procita narrowly escaped with one of his dogs, but lost another dog and his pet rabbits in the fire. Thomas said the fire was brought under control by 8:55 p.m. and no one was injured or killed. What he doesn’t know is how the fire started. Over a hundred other sightings of the fireball near the house were reported to the American Meteor Society from as far south as Gustin, California to as far north as Grands Pass, Oregon. Elinor Gates, an astronomer at the Lick Observatory in Mount Hamilton, said one of her colleagues was at his home near Pleasant Valley when he happened to see it, describing it as “the brightest fireball he’d ever seen.” While the fireball was observed on the same night as the Taurid meteor shower, NASA said on Facebook that it was not part of that event. Gates and other experts believe it is unlikely that a meteorite caused the fire that destroyed the house. “What I can say is that it’s an amazing coincidence, timing wise,” Gates told SFGATE. He explained that meteorites are extremely cold when they come from space (for perspective, the base temperature is minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit.) Although they can be heated by friction in the Earth’s atmosphere, they generally cool by the time they hit the ground. “Since the journey through the Earth’s atmosphere takes only a few seconds, there is no time for the meteorite as a whole to heat up, only the outer layer itself,” known as the fusion crust, Gates said. “One can assume that the cold interior of the meteorite will act as a heat sink and cool the hot surface very quickly, as well as the heat transfer to the air around it.” While it’s still possible the meteorite could have fallen on Procita’s home, the heat of the rock itself would not have caused the fire, Gates said. “It would have to be because it hit something flammable, like a propane can or something that could cause a spark,” he continued. “I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s highly unlikely.” Officials are investigating whether a meteorite started a fire that destroyed a home in Nevada County. CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit 4, 796 Tweets View New Tweets CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit Karl Antier, webmaster for the International Meteor Organization, added that the trajectory of the meteor inferred from witness reports means it would have landed much further north than Procita’s home near Englebright Lake. “Even if a meteor fell into this man’s house, it would not cause a fire, as it is just a piece of rock that fell from the sky, no more,” Andie told SFGATE in an email. “Contrary to what is commonly believed, a falling meteorite is not hot, but very cold, and will not itself cause a fire if it hits an object. The only reason it could do that is if it ran into something, which, damaged, could start a fire.” Thomas said a fire of this nature would be considered “extremely rare” if the cause was in fact a meteorite, but that other factors still need to be ruled out, such as electrical problems, problems with gas service or smoking materials found in the building. He told SFGATE he saw a video of the fireball captured by a person while they were driving along Highway 20 on Friday night. “When they tried to figure out where it landed, they got to the building that was on fire,” he said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation and may take several weeks to determine given the damage to the building. Thomas said officials did not find any objects consistent with a meteorite at the site. He plans to contact NASA and the U.S. Air Force, which has a base about 10 miles from where the fire broke out, in hopes of gathering more information. “It’s a complicated situation when you’re tracking the possibility of an alien rock,” he said. “We just want to make sure we’re covering all our bases.”
