Lightning appears to have started a Manitoba farm house on fire on Wednesday, damaging the roof and startling the homeowners.

Walter Van Gorp said he was having breakfast with his wife at about 9 a.m. CT when they detected an enormous bang from the roof of their home in Île-des-Chênes, south of Winnipeg.

"The wife was looking at that, so she got the main explosion, I guess, because she couldn't hear for probably about a minute…. It was just so loud," Van Gorp told CBC News.

"I saw smoke right away so I got up, took a ladder, climbed to [the] top of the house and, well, I said, 'There's fire.' So, it was instant."

Numerous emergency vehicles raced to the scene to fight the blaze. They also cut into the roof of the house to get to flames inside the attic area.

Crews remained at the scene in the early afternoon, keeping an eye on hot spots for possible flare-ups.

No one was hurt, but Van Gorp said the entire house is damaged. Early estimates peg the damage at more than $100,000.

"It's just money. We have our health, so that's the main thing," he said.

Van Gorp added that the house has been struck by lightning before, but unlike Wednesday's incident, there was no fire last time.

Île-des-Chênes is located about 14 kilometres south of Winnipeg's Perimeter Highway.