Never saw this before ...

We had some thunder and lightning in Timmins Saturday night. It appears lightning caused a house fire and also split open this hardwood tree. I've never seen this before, and so I snapped a photo. One fellow on the street suggested it might have been caused by the intense heat of the lightning cooking the inside of the tree to the point that the sap was boiled, steam was generated and the pressure exploded all the bark off the bottom portion of the tree. It also scattered several chunks of wood all around the yard, the street and neighbouring driveways. Bizarre eh.