METEOR WRONG
Dustin Procita and his wife Jeanette believed that the massive fire that destroyed their home on a northern California cattle ranch, killing one of their dogs and two rabbits, was caused by a meteorite hitting their house. “I heard a big bang,” Procita said. “‘I started to smell smoke. I went onto my porch and it was completely engulfed in flames.” At around the same time, numerous people in Nevada and California saw a meteorite arcing across the sky, with some catching it on their door cameras. “I did not see what it was, but from everybody I talked to it was a flaming ball falling from the sky, and landed in that general area,” Procita said. “I’ve always watched meteor showers and stuff as a kid, but I definitely didn’t look forward to them landing in my yard or through my roof.” He added that he felt “very lucky that it was 30 feet [9m] away from me and not five [1.5m]”.
Fire investigators, though, came to a different conclusion. “I am very confident that a rock from space did not hit this house,” said Clayton Thomas from the PennValley Fire Protection District. His teamthe trajectory of the one seen on the night of the fire would have resulted in an impact at least 200 miles (320km) from the Procitas’ house. He also pointed out that meteorites are actually not very hot when they hit the ground, so are unlikely to start fires. He cited the recent case of a meteorite that hit a house in British Columbia and landed on a bed beside the sleeping owner (see ), saying “it obviously wasn’t hot enough to ignite the bedding.”
