CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. -- A popup thunderstorm in Cleveland County sent a bolt of lightening down a tree and into a nearby home, setting it on fire early Wednesday.

Neighbors said that it was a beautiful, sunny summer day shortly before the blaze.

“It was sunny and all of sudden got a little cloudy, and (there was) this huge boom and then a great big downpour of rain,” Pam Devine said.

The storm came from a small cell that creeped across the Charlotte region Wednesday morning. Neighbors said there were only two minutes of hard rain over Dyer Drive near Shelby.

“The cloud was like basically sitting on top of us,” Devine said.

“It just followed the path of least resistance down the tree,” said Dewey Cook, Cleveland County’s emergency management director.

Emergency crews said the lightning swirled around the tree as it came down and jumped to a house.

“It went into the basement and started a fire in the basement area,” Cook said.

Homeowner Jamie Smith had moved in two months ago. He and his fiancé, who plan to wed in September, picked it as their first home.

Heavy volts from the lightning destroyed the electrical wiring and now their dream home is uninhabitable.

“The house is everything,” Smith said.

The couple was away when the fire started. Most of their belongings inside suffered smoke and water damage, but Brittany Kale's wedding dress survived the storm.

“I am so grateful that it's all right,” Kale said.

The couple will be staying with relatives until their dream home is repaired. How long that will take is up to an insurance agent and the person who has to make sure the wiring works again.