MAPLETON – A barn was destroyed by fire here on Aug. 28 during what turned out to be a busy weekend for local firefighters.
Mapleton Fire Rescue’s Drayton and Moorefield stations were called to the barn fire at 11:11am on Concession Road 3.
“The fire was contained to the shed and barn building,” Fire Chief Rick Richardson explained, noting a few chickens and a calf perished in the fire.
Richardson added, “There was propane tanks and gas tanks nearby that we were trying to protect everyone from.”
The structure was used to store farming materials and equipment, including combines and field rakes, as well as grain, hens and calves.
Richardson said the property owners were chopping some straw for bedding and something in the straw ignited, which he speculated might have been a stone or some metal.
Listowel and Palmerston Fire Stations were also called in for help. Eight firefighters responded from Drayton, 16 from Moorefield, seven from Listowel and seven from Palmerston.
Richardson said they remained on scene until just after 4pm, when the fire was completely out.
“There’s a bunch of little things you have to keep an eye on when you’ve got the propane tanks and gas tanks and a house nearby,” he explained.
“You want to make sure you don’t have anything else going on.”
Commercial fire
Mapleton firefighters also responded to a structure fire at a commercial building on Aug. 29.
Richardson said the department received a call on Sunday from Darling International Inc, a U.S.-based company known locally as Rothsay Recycles, a rendering plant on Wellington Road 7.
The call came in at 9:50am and the scene was cleared just before 1pm.
Richardson said there was no damage to the actual structure, just the product inside. The structure was used to hold containers of bone meal.
“The meal had overheated in the bin and then when they opened the bin to clean it out, they got air in it and it ignited,” he explained.
“(The fire) was contained to one bin, so we just kept putting water on it and that was the extent of our work to be done.”
He said damage estimates are unknown, adding the structure itself was fully intact.
Vehicle collision
Two drivers were taken to hospital following a collision at the intersection of Wellington Road 9 and Concession Road 12 in Mapleton on Aug. 27.
Wellington OPP, Drayton Fire Station and Guelph-Wellington Paramedic services responded to a call after a car and a pickup truck carrying a trailer were involved in a crash.
One of the vehicles went through the stop sign before entering the intersection and striking the side of the other vehicle.
Richardson said the fire department extricated the drivers from the cars before they were taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The call came in at 2:30pm and firefighters left the scene shortly after 3pm. It is not clear which driver was at fault.
