Observe the wrath that lightning wrought on this Calgary home

When Simon Corrin woke up to hear four voicemails — including one from the Calgary Fire Department — asking if his bungalow that he rents out had been hit by lightning, he thought he was getting pranked.

"I thought it was very strange for a solicitor to say that my house got struck by lightning," Corrin told the Calgary Eyeopener's Paul Karchut.

But that's exactly what happened.

A bolt of lightning struck the roof of his bungalow in University Heights and set the home on fire early Monday morning.

"Why it struck this and not that, nobody really knows. Nobody has a good answer. So I guess it's from Mother Nature, or powers beyond us," Corrin said.

The lightning strike blew out the windows, scorched the ceiling beams and fried all the wiring.

"With the fire damage, with the smoke damage, with the water damage, it's going to get gutted to studs. So at that point, does it make sense to fix it or just rebuild it?" Corrin wondered.

You can reach your own conclusions from the photos below.

This is where the lightning struck.

'You can really smell it,' said Corrin.

'It went right through the house, probably 50, 60 feet over and popped the nails out of the neighbour's walls and also knocked pictures off the walls,' Corrin said.

'For it to go through walls and actually blow the glass out of bedrooms, you know it's pretty crazy.'

'Every wire in the house needs to be replaced, because even in the basement, the plugs have fused.'

This evergreen behind the house wasn't leaning before the lightning strike. 'And there's grass and sod up on the roof from where the ground exploded upwards,' said Corrin.

With files from Paul Karchut and the Calgary Eyeopener.