Firefighter injured after lightning hits building

Thunderstorms moving across Kansas on Friday brought large hail, at least one tornado and lightning that sparked a fire at a vacant apartment building in Topeka.

A firefighter sustained first- and second-degree burns on his hands and shoulder when the building’s roof collapsed, Battalion Chief Mike Clifton said. The firefighter was treated at a hospital and released.

The building was empty because it had just been renovated, fire officials said.

In Barton County in central Kansas, sheriff’s dispatcher Paula Lloyd said a combination of a tornado and straight-line winds damaged trees and signs west of Great Bend late Friday afternoon. The National Weather Service said straight-line winds hit Great Bend itself, tearing the roof off a motel and a fourplex and damaging the roof of a nursing home. The storm also left parts of the city without power late Friday afternoon.

Counties across the state reported hail up to golf-ball size.

As the storms moved east, packing winds that gusted above 70 mph, law enforcement agencies reported several downed trees in Marion County and in Osage City in east-central Kansas. Other locations across the state, including Douglas County, reported broken limbs, some up to a foot in diameter, and power outages.