CENTRE WELLINGTON – Centre Wellington Fire and Rescue Services responded from Fergus and Elora stations to a farm property south of Elora on Feb. 28.
A 911 call rang in at 10:45am on Monday from a nearby neighbour reporting smoke coming from a building on Wellington Road 7, between 2nd and 4th Lines.
Smoke was billowing from a cattle barn as firefighters arrived on scene and property owners were coaxing cattle out from the burning structure.
Once the size of the blaze was realized, tanker trucks were requested from Guelph, Drayton and Arthur to shuttle water to the property and around 25 volunteer firefighters got to work running an attack hose line down the long laneway leading into the property.
Other firefighters took on the role of cattle hands, helping to move the stubborn animals to safety.
Centre Wellington firefighters from Fergus and Elora stations responded to a farm property on Wellington Road 7 south of Elora on Feb. 28. (Submitted photo)
Water rained into the barn from a crew providing cover for those moving cattle outdoors.
At the same time, firefighters were protecting multiple adjacent structures from the radiating heat and two feed silos attached the building being licked by the flames.
Plumes of grey smoke could still be seen shortly after noon, roughly a kilometre-and-a-half away.
To the east of the farm, from 4th Line, around 12 people could be seen standing with a herd of cattle, looking on as a cascade of sweeping water disappeared into the smoke.
Around 100 cattle were rescued from a Centre Wellington barn fire on Feb. 28. (Photo by Jordan Snobelen)
Support beams stood upright, poking out from the remnants of the barn’s black skeleton, contrasting with snow-covered farm fields.
“They went at it pretty aggressively,” said deputy fire chief Jonathan Karn, who was still at the scene as of 2:30pm.
Three years ago, a new addition was added the original barn that caught fire, Karn said, noting crews successfully kept the new addition from catching fire.
A fire prevention officer was speaking with the property owner to determine where the fire started, but Karn said the suspected cause of the fire is an “electrical problem” at one end of the barn.
Karn said crews took at least an hour to get the fire under control after it progressed into a second-level hayloft.
“That makes it a little bit more stubborn to get it finally put out – that hay will smoulder for quite some time,” Karn said.
Fire apparatus seen from 4th Line in Centre Wellington on Monday. (Photo by Jordan Snobelen)
Around 100 cattle were removed to safety and none were harmed in the blaze, said Karn, who added nobody was hurt.
Over three hours after the initial call came in, crews remained on scene packing up equipment.
An orange excavator had also arrived and was pulling what was left of the steel-clad building to the ground.
The deputy fire chief expected crews to remain on scene until 3:30pm and a portion of Wellington Road 7, between 2nd and 4th Lines, blocked off earlier by Wellington OPP, was reopened as of 4pm.
Karn said damage has been estimated at $300,000.
