Blaze started early Wednesday morning
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
A fire on a cash crop farm near Ingersoll, Ont. early Wednesday caused an estimated $500,000 in damages.
Members of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and South-West Oxford Fire Department received a call just after 3:45 a.m. that a drive shed was on fire.
When first responders arrived at the farm on Pigram Line between Gladstone Drive and Daniel Road, the shed was fully engulfed in flames.
“People who reside on the property heard a loud popping noise and looked out and discovered that their drive shed was on fire,” Constable Stacey Culbert, media relations officer for Oxford County OPP, told CBC Wednesday.
The drive shed contained a number of pieces of equipment, including a combine.
OPP and firefighters responded to a fire on an Oxford County farm.
Photo: OPP
The fire isn’t considered suspicious and no injuries were reported. The investigation is ongoing.
“The Fire Marshal has been contacted and will not be attending,” Constable Culbert told Farms.com in an email today. “The fire department is still investigating its cause.”
By about 9 a.m., firefighters put out the fire.
The Oxford County fire is one of a number of farm fires in 2017.
On the evening of June 6, Haldimand County firefighters responded to a barn fire in Cayuga.
The fire was deemed suspicious and the Ontario Fire Marshal was notified.
In February, 30 firefighters and 15 fire trucks responded to a barn fire on a Gatineau, Ont. farm, which claimed the lives of 33 cows and 15 calves.
On Jan. 25, first responders in Simcoe County’s Tiny Township fought a fire that claimed the lives of four horses and other animals.
And on Jan. 2, more than 40 firefighters from West Perth, Perth East, Sebringville, St. Mary’s and Granton fire departments battled a blaze on a hog farm.
The barn was empty and no livestock was lost in the fire.
OMAFRA’s publication, Reducing the Risk of Fire on Farm, provides prevention strategies and maintenance tips to help reduce the possibility of barn fires.