Officials investigating the cause of a house fire in Northern California are considering the possibility that a metor may have struck the home on Friday evening.
The fire was reported on the day when the annual Taurid meteor shower peaked. Meteor showers are named for the constellation to which their paths can be traced, since their orbits tend to intersect Earth’s orbit at a particular point.
Stargazers had been urged to look out for “fireballs” ahead of a shower that was anticipated to be intense.
CBS News reported:
[T]he Taurids are typically one of the most sparse showers of the year. You would be lucky to see a handful each hour. BUT, the Taurids have been dubbed the “Halloween Fireballs” due to how bright and spectacular they can be.
They appear brighter than the typical meteor because the Taurids tend to be slightly larger and therefore travel farther through the Earth’s atmosphere.
There is reason to hope that this year, we could encounter a Taurid “swarm” or an uptick in the number of meteors. . . scientists have noticed that every seven years we tend to hit a peak in Taurid activity. The last such peak was in 2015, and here we are seven years later in 2022.
Such a “fireball” may have hit a home in Nevada County, California, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle:
The fire was reported at 7:25 p.m. in the Mooney Flat area and was contained by 8:55 p.m., said Fire Captain Clayton Thomas of the Penn Valley Fire District. It occurred the same night the Taurid meteor shower was underway, and many residents reported seeing a bright light shoot across the sky and appear to land in the area near the home immediately before the fire began.
The fire destroyed the home, as well as a truck and a car parked outside the home, Thomas said. No one was injured or killed, but a pet dog and rabbits were lost in the fire, he said.
…
“I’ve been an investigator for 12 years and in the fire service for 25. I’ve never been to a fire that was caused by a meteor,” Thomas said. “But at this point, because our investigation isn’t done, I can’t rule that out as a possibility. They have struck homes throughout the world in the past.”
A common joke in recent elections has been bumper stickers which support the “Sweet Meteor of Death” for president, preferring the end of the world to either of the two major party nominees.
In other astronomical news, a lunar eclipse is anticipated early Tuesday morning, a “red moon” rising ahead of an anticipated “red wave” of Republican victories in the U.S. midterm elections.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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