I'm not going to get too worked up about it unless I am on a mountain or some other reason to believe the lightning is funnelled my way. Just because some expert has come up with a way to make you look even more foolish than normal in the foam helmet and fluro garb, doesn't mean one has to take the bait.

A few years back though, a bolt hit our ash tree, and caused an explosion the aftermath of which looked like a explosion in a rack of 2x4s. Large pieces of wood were blown a hundred yards or more away. It happened the part of the tree that was conductive was a quadrant away from the house. Otherwise there is some possibility that people standing at the windows, or the house itself, would have been hard hit. It was a like a claymore explosion, very directional, but you could have been crouching a hundred yards away and taken a 20 pound javelin in the head. That was a funnel situation where the ash was the largest tree for at least 100 yards around, and the house that is also on the small rise was spared.