Story highlights A thunderstorm swept through St. Louis, early Wednesday morning

Jim Probst hours later spotted a tree still burning after a lightning strike

(CNN) When you get up to walk your dog at 6 a.m., you don't expect to see a burning tree. But after a storm rolled through Jim Probst's neighborhood, that's exactly what happened.

Around 2 a.m. CT, Wednesday, in St. Louis, Jim Probst woke up to thunder and lightning -- and had to comfort his terrified dog. The dog "shoved himself under my bed," Probst said, and he went back to sleep.

"I got up about 5:30 to get the dog ready for a walk but saw the smoke out in the cemetery and left the dog in the yard, walked over and well, you see what I saw in the video," Probst told CNN.

"There was bark shed off in the grass, and I knew that's from a lightning strike," Probst said, referring to long strips of bark that littered the lawn.

Probst wasn't scared. He knew a lightning strike would make a tree look like it had exploded.

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