No one was injured when a residence at 3160 Bouie Mill Roadburned to the ground after midnight Sunday morning. But the blazemight never have been noticed if stormy weather hadn’t beenlittering the roads with downed branches in the Loyd Star area.

The blaze was found by two Loyd Star volunteer firefightersafter their department was called out for a grass fire just beforemidnight Saturday.

Loyd Star Assistant Chief Josh Smith said members of thedepartment, after finding no grass fire, were traveling theirdistrict clearing downed trees and limbs from the road after thestormy weather throughout the night. Smith said around 1:28 a.m.Sunday, firefighters Shane and Rikkie Case saw what appeared to beflames coming from the woods.

“They were traveling down Bouie Mill Road and noticed smoke comingfrom the woods,” Smith said. “They notified us on the radio theywere going to see what it was, and they were thinking it was awoods fire.”

He said when they went farther up the driveway, they realized thefire was actually a fully involved structure fire.

The home’s owners, Charles and Scarlet Bergeron, were with theirfamily in Jackson on a shopping trip the night of the fire, whichSmith said resulted in a total loss.

Loyd Star, Zetus and New Sight volunteer fire departments were sentto the scene, where they spent about four hours extinguishing theflames and preventing them from spreading to surroundingvegetation.

Firefighters worked around live power lines, as the phone lines toSouthwest Mississippi Electric Power Association were all busy dueto power outages from the weather and a crew could not be reachedto disconnect the power at the scene.

Southwest Mississippi EPA Public Relations Coordinator AzaleaKnight said their office had no power for about an hour and a halfat the height of the storm, which could have been the cause forbusy lines. She said in addition, workers were being assembled tocome in to the office and answer the phones during the storm.

“Normally in a major outage, it will take us about an hour to getpeople in here to man the phones,” she said. “We don’t have a callcenter, we have actual people who answer the phones.”

Smith said there is no way to tell at this point what might havecaused the fire, though speculation at the scene was that it mayhave been a lightning strike.

“I know the sheriff’s department went out yesterday to get thereport, and we’re looking at causes,” Smith said Monday.

In other fallout from the area weather, many area customers werepowerless after weather knocked trees and branches through powerlines during the storms Saturday night.

Knight said approximately 8,000- 9,000 customers in theirnine-county territory were without power at the height of thestorm. As of 4 p.m. Sunday there were still 3,000-4,000 withoutpower.

“But Lincoln County is in good shape,” she said. “There are onlyabout 30 meters that are still down in Lincoln County this morning.There are a few more in Copiah County, but we have contract workerson that right now.”

Knight said the company expects power to be fully restored byMonday evening.

Entergy Customer Service Manager Kenny Goza said Entergy reportedaround 1,300 customers who were affected by power outages. He saidmost of Entergy’s outage incidents were in Copiah County in theCrystal Springs area.

Outside resources are coming in to help with the restoration forEntergy as well, and hopefully power will be restored to all areasby late Monday, Goza said.