The spontaneous combustion of silage in a silo here on Monday caused an estimated $50,000 in damage, according to fire officials.
The call came in as a “barn fire” near Wellington Road 124 and 5th Line in Erin at about 2:25pm on Sept. 14.
Erin Fire Chief Dan Callaghan explained hay silage spontaneously combusted within a Harvestore silo.
“So the silage is … in an oxygen-limited state so it’s a glass lined silo and there’s very little oxygen in the silo and when they open this hatch to remove the silage out of it on a conveyor system then you get some oxygen that is introduced and … if they put it in and the moisture content is not correct it will spontaneously combust,” Callaghan said.
“I suspect that some of the unloaded product dropped onto combustible material under the unloading conveyors which started on fire and started the building (attached to the silo) on fire.”
Radiant heat from that fire set a driving shed beside the silo on fire, as well.
The fire department put out both fires, Callaghan said, but the building attached to the silo was completely destroyed.
“We actually had to pull it down because it was in our way to get to the silo, but it was destroyed enough that we pulled it down out of the way,” he said.
The damage is estimated at $50,000 and no injuries were reported – to humans or livestock.
“Cattle were right next to it, but basically we worked around them because there wasn’t a way to move them out of their location in a large fenced-in area by the barn,” Callaghan said.
The hydro to the farm was shut off except for the farmhouse because the power was compromised in the unloading mechanism at the base of the silo, he added.
Three stations responded to the call, Station 10 from Erin, Station 50 from Hillsburgh and Station 20 from Rockwood, and the site was cleared in about two hours, Callaghan said.
The farmer sealed the silo and Callaghan said he didn’t know if the fire was extinguished, but it would take some time to starve itself of oxygen.
