As odd as it sounds, setting a fire now may help prevent barn fires in the future.
Puslinch Fire and Rescue Services conducted a controlled barn fire on April 22 to learn more about how fires act and then using that information to better protect residents.
The department was granted permission to burn a barn on Laird Road south of Guelph for research and for creating education videos.
“We’ve been graciously donated a barn by the Speers family here in Puslinch,” explained chief fire prevention officer Jason Benn.
“This allows us to train and do research.”
Morning events on April 22 included demonstrations of different types of fires, while the afternoon consisted of the setting the entire cinder block building ablaze.
In early January, the Puslinch community and the Ontario horse industry was hit hard by the multi-million dollar blaze at the Classy Lane Training Centre.
“With the amount of barn fires that have happened in Ontario this year, we find this opportunity very important with respect to obtaining a barn for educational and research purposes,” said Benn.
He said “We are getting good data and information at the incipient stage of the fire.”
Barns are often fully engulfed in flames less than 10 minutes after ignition and in many rural areas it can take 10 minutes or more for firefighters to arrive on scene.
But with the controlled burn, “we will determine what goes on in the initial stages of the fire” and the speed at which the flames spread, Benn said.
Media were invited to attend, and see up close what really happens during the various stages of a barn fire. Puslinch firefighters were on the scene and precautions in place to ensure the burn was controlled.
It only took a few minutes from ignition for flames to climb inside walls and flames to roar through the doors and roof.
Within five minutes the building was engulfed in fire. Firefighters opened the barn doors to reveal the fiery inferno inside. And, less than 20 minutes later, the barn roof and supporting beams had mostly collapsed into the building.
Benn said researchers from the University of Waterloo were on site to record the entire burn.
“They are with the fire lab and are conducting camera and thermal experiments within the barn during the fire,” said Benn, who explained data was transferred wirelessly to the researchers’ laptops during the blaze.
Benn said this will provide different heat readings and viewings of the thermal layers as the fire grows. Once the lab processes its information, it will put into digital form and provided to Benn.
He noted there was also a production crew filming the fire – and two drone helicopters filmed the fire from above.
“We are making education videos – one for citizens and the agriculture community and another information and education video for the fire side,” said Benn.
