Last time I was standing near a tree when lightning hit, it was a big white pine, and it was 20 ft from the house I was working IN (inside!). Lightning hit the tree, which exploded like it was full of TNT, splintered into fragments; but the lightning arc was not satisfied finding "earth" there. It jumped from the tree to the house, ran down the aluminum soffit trim, then arced into the open window I was about to close. Shot across the room, hit a bundle of LV cabling I'd just run, re-emerged from a light fixture in the room below, struck a floor receptacle, then shot out of the ceiling light in the basement, struck my 4-way power cord on the concrete floor, spider webbing the concrete. Scared the you know what out of the tile guy in basement, painter on the main floor, and me on the top floor. After I picked myself off the floor (literally), regained my vision (several seconds) and hearing (few minutes), and waht was left of our senses, we all went home for the day, changed underwear, and returned to the job the following day.. . The house had a weird, very strong odor of ozone and pine rosin for a while.
Few days later, I'm working on the same house, running alarm cables to the horse barn about 500 ft away. Just hooked up the alarm system in the house and barn, tested and was happy with all... until, BAM! Yep, another strike. This time hit the power pole end of driveway. Ran in on the house service GROUND, blew up
everything electrical.
Melted the alarm panel circuit board traces, and burned through several cables. What a mess. Lighting hit around that house so many times while I was there I lost count. I saw lightning hit the metal sliding door track on the barn one of the last days I was there... fried the last of my door sensors. Everything was protected with MOVs and GDTs... made no difference. When lightning hits that close, and it's a high amp bolt, does not matter what you do to protect circuits aside from physically disconnecting and storing in a Faraday cage! That was the first time I'd seen lighting damage go reverse - not in on utility mains, but run backwards from the ground up into the house wiring & connected systems.
Another client house, top of the mountain, another storm. Lightning seeks out and finds a tall red oak. Splits the top part, blows off some bark, but otherwise seems ok considering all. My client's Mercedes, parked in the driveway below, did not fare so well. No apparent damage until he tried to start it. Every display and indicator lit up ACHTUNG ACHTUNG! Nothing worked. Blew out every computer onboard. Back to the dealer for some very expensive repairs. Strangley, lightning never hit or damaged my 5.8GHz PTP microwave antenna 65 ft up in a fir tree, though lightning struck the property frequently. No rhyme or reason. Hits where it wants, doesn't hit where it doesn't want. Strange phenomena...
After seeing lightning zip through the interior of a 3 story house like a drunk bat, I'm not sure where is safe... I just try to avoid anything electrical, metallic, and grounded (appliances, HVAC, metal plumbing etc). Still, it's so amazing and fascinating to watch... from a distance, a very LONG distance.
Love catching lightning on cameras, though always afraid it's going to be a bit too close for comfort. Plus, gets expensive when it lets the magic smoke out of electronics.. they never work again 
