It's sad, I've been watching the thread, just don't know what to say. I've experienced a certain amount of tragedy and have learned and find that good things can arrise out of it's dust.
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I had a teenage friend who, upon hearing a lightning strike nearby, ran down to the basement to turn off the power, as his parents had told him to do. The concrete floor was wet with condensation, he was wearing socks. The bolt hit the nearby power lines, and a piece of it came through the water line ground spike, zapping him. He said it felt like somebody whacked him very hard on the soles of his feet with a baseball bat, knocked him on his a**, but no other ill effects. Lucky dude.
when I was in high school I was playing a gig in a basement when the house got hit by lightning, I got a pretty good whack right in the face from a microphone that knocked me on my feet, there were no long term affects, but it was pretty painful.
Good to know, since I now have a concrete basement that I play in. One would typically go to the basement for a bad storm with chance for tornado, but I never thought of the possibility of lightning coming through the concrete. Makes sense though. We have lots of bad thunderstorms, but almost no tornadoes.
Lightning makes its own conductor by ionizing the air in front of it , forming the conductor as it goes . As for following conductors, since air can withstand a few kV / cm before an arc forms, if the charge finds an easier path , it'll use that . And if the conductor is too small and covered with anything with carbon in it, might as well fry that too and follow its own carbon tracks. If you really, really want to know more about lightning and plasmas , send a msg.
Best wishes
I can clearly see in the yard where the lightning followed an underground dog fence wire. Not sure how it got from there through 5' of concrete to get to my studio. It really wanted to rock, I guess.
A concrete basement floor is a conductor, especially if the ground is wet, and a small hole, a snap-tie left in , bit of rebar or a section of conduit , say near an electrical box , and alas ...
FWIW
Our physics experiment contains several high current (tens of kA) and voltage (many kV) pulsed power supplies. When a part goes in a power circuit , bits of metal vapor fly, and surviving (temporarily) metal bits suddenly hold high voltage and arc to the next thing, plasma balls form in the air and all sorts of interesting paths to ground are discovered here and there. Finding exactly what happened in devices we built and think we understand is often difficult. Constant video monitoring of those parts is necessary , even if explosions are rare , and if even at 30frames/sec one can only see that in this frame there is a circuit board that disappeared, then the screen goes completely white for one frame , and in the third frame you see metal mist and a couple embers of fiberglass. This all sits in a big room with concrete walls, whose resistance to ground - and power co. neutral - varies with recent rainfall and the local water table, and you can bet we measure the resistances to various grounds daily.
Things got a little (ok a LOT) better today:
Sorry, I didn't mean to be cryptic. It's a Keisel/Carvin Icon 5. It's a direct cost replacement for the Koa Carvin LB75 that got burned in the fire. It was an in-stock model, but as I looked at the specs, I'm not sure there are many things I would change about it. Due to fire responsibilities I have only played it for 30 seconds. It's nice so far, I have to get used to frets and I think it needs a truss rod adjustment. It's a freaking beautiful instrument though. Wow.
I build concrete foundations for a living, so I can't help but chime in right now. As oldnewbie said, there's more than likely some (if not alot) of rebar in most foundations nowadays. And there is also snap ties that run through the width of the wall (typically 10"-12") every 2 feet horizontally and 16 inches vertically, only covered up by a dab of hydraulic cement to hide them. And thats just in the walls. Most floors have a 6"x6" welded wire mesh grid throughout the whole area. Ive actually done some slabs where the print called for a 2'x2' rebar grid along with a wire mesh grid on top of it. So, alot of potential for electrical conductivity within concrete. Maybe a rubber subfloor of some type would help in that regard. None the less, my heart goes out to you. Hopefully bigger and better things to come 
Thanks for the info @Chris_Toot - if the lightning followed rebar or something else in the concrete, would there be any evidence of where it went through the concrete? I don't see anything on the outside or inside of the foundation that shows any sign of the lightning. Of course the inside of the foundation is black as night at this point, so I'm not sure I could see anything even if it was there.
@Jisch As an engineer, I can tell you that there will be evidence of a conductor between the lightning strike on your lawn and the studio. Lightning does ionize the air in front of it, but that won't set your studio on fire without a conductor. Moisture on the lawn and re-bar in the foundation is a possibility.
Based on my brother's experience in the insurance business, it's rare that they will hire engineers, dig up your lawn, and possibly damage your building foundation...to connect all the dots. It's more likely that they will pay you, but attempt to minimize their cost by failing to pay true value for your instruments. This is why I advised you to prepare for a fight.
BTW...that Carvin is absolutely magnificent....from the walnut pureness to those inlays. I mean....truly spectacular !!
Based on my brother's experience in the insurance business, it's rare that they will hire engineers, dig up your lawn, and possibly damage your building foundation...to connect all the dots. It's more likely that they will pay you, but attempt to minimize their cost by failing to pay true value for your instruments. This is why I advised you to prepare for a fight.
BTW...that Carvin is absolutely magnificent....from the walnut pureness to those inlays. I mean....truly spectacular !!
The insurance company brought a scientist out to look at things. I wasn't there the whole time he was so I am not sure exactly what he looked at, but he didn't dig any holes and I couldn't see any evidence that he poked around inside the studio. They said they would give me a copy of his report. Maybe as the walls come down I'll see something. I'll post up if I do.
I'll put a up NBD post, but the craftsmanship on this Carvin is pretty incredible. I know they use CNC to make them, but every corner, inlay and glue joint is perfect, the consistency on the finish is also perfect, it really is a work of art. I'm not sure I've ever seen inlays so perfect before. It sounds great through this little practice amp, I love the tonal possibilities from the preamp and pickups. I need to work on the set up more, the action is higher than I like.
I'll put a up NBD post, but the craftsmanship on this Carvin is pretty incredible. I know they use CNC to make them, but every corner, inlay and glue joint is perfect, the consistency on the finish is also perfect, it really is a work of art. I'm not sure I've ever seen inlays so perfect before. It sounds great through this little practice amp, I love the tonal possibilities from the preamp and pickups. I need to work on the set up more, the action is higher than I like.
Not to get too far away from Jisch's recovery and his getting back to music, but lightning ionizing the air in front of it, making a conductor and forming its own plasma is how lightning works in the first place . 10^7 amps, 10^5 degrees , 10^8 volts carried by the plasma in a lightning strike. Remember also during the instant of the strike in the soil, ground and neutral circuits may well be at a huge potential with each other and corona discharges at any screw terminal inside any wall plug are possible. That underground fence wire - that went back into the house ? Could well have been it . Didn't go into the house, just close ? you sure don't need wires , there were a lot of ways in as discussed. I'd guess that the best anyone can do is figure out where the fire started from the fire evidence itself, as some of the causal chain was likely consumed in the fire.
One of the dog fence wires (there were two different runs) ended inside the house (blue wire), but the wires are intact inside the house - they are blown out on the outside of the house, all that's left is insulation. The other dog fence wire (black wire) was cut off just inside the house - there is none of that wire left, but I am not sure there was any inside anyway. Both wires terminated inside my garage which is on a slab and neither of those two wires were connected to anything. The end of the black wire was about 10' away from the house foundation where my studio was. I am assuming the black wire was the one that traced into the studio, but there's no evidence of that on the garage slab that I can see. Perhaps it traveled along rebar in the slab and jumped over to the basement somehow. The blue wire terminated at the very end of the garage which is about 25' from the basement.
"Jumped somehow" is quite possibly all you'll be able to say. Now go play the lovely new axe.
