Thursday afternoon’s hail and heavy rainstorms in Tyrol’s Unterland sparked fires from lightning strikes. In Wörgl (Kufstein district), a bolt hit a single-family home, igniting its façade and spreading to the roof. In Kössen (Kitzbühel district), lightning set a hay barn ablaze in an open field. No one was injured. Nationwide agricultural losses from the storms totaled €9 million.

In Wörgl, the strike first ignited the lower façade of the prefabricated house, then rapidly climbed to the roof. Firefighters controlled the blaze after about 90 minutes, later sealing walls and roof. Damage assessments remain ongoing.

In Kössen, lightning punctured a one-square-meter hole in the barn roof; firefighters extinguished the fire swiftly.

Emergency Responses

By evening, Tyrol’s operations center logged roughly 150 fire service deployments, mainly for fallen trees and water damage, with no widespread major destruction. In Lower Austria, about 80 storm-related calls focused on Horn, Zwettl, Gmünd, Krems, and Waidhofen an der Thaya—felled trees, flooded basements, and torn roofs near Groß-Siegharts. 164 firefighters responded.

The “Woodstock der Blasmusik” festival in Upper Austria, earlier evacuated, escaped unharmed: storms merely grazed the site, organizers said, and camping resumed.

Agricultural Damage

The Austrian Hail Insurance estimated €9 million in farm losses, chiefly in Tyrol and Styria and locally in Lower Austria, as hail up to 5 cm damaged crops, orchards, tree nurseries, Christmas-tree farms, and vegetable plots.