Two Eden Prairie homes were damaged by fire after lightning hit both sites Wednesday morning.

“Both of them lost a chunk of their roof,” noted Eden Prairie Fire Marshal Allen Nelson.

Both fires occurred approximately at 6:30 Wednesday morning. One, on the 7900 block of Island Road had about $120,000 in damage between structure and contents of the house. The other, occurring on the 9600 block of Marshal Road, included about $150,000 in damage to the property and a $40,000 loss in contents.  No one was injured in either fire.

“Quite a morning,” noted Nelson.

 August increase 

This week follows up a month that has included two other notable house fires.

Two large house fires occurred in Eden Prairie within two days of eachother earlier this month.

According to Nelson, the first fire occurred at about 4 p.m. Aug. 16 and left about $275,000 in damage. The fire started from sparks of a welding torch. It destroyed the garage and part of the roof of a home in the 15000 block of Ironwood Court. The homeowner had been welding some parts in the garage and sparks went into a garbage can, later starting a fire. According to Nelson, three Eden Prairie firefighters were injured during the incident: Two were treated for heat exhaustion at a hospital and released. A third was treated at the scene for blisters.

Nelson noted that the Fire Department recommends that commercial and home welders “watch the area for at least an hour” after sparks were produced.

A second large fire also recently occurred with the call coming in at 8:44 a.m. Monday, Aug. 18, on Creekside Court. In that case, a box propped against a light bulb underneath a stair storage area caught fire. There was quite a bit of damage, but less than the other incident because the fire was controlled by the water pipe that let loose from the heat of the fire, noted Nelson.

Damage to that house totaled $225,000 in contents and property damage.