Damage to the barn estimated at $200K
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
A fire on a dairy farm near Drayton on Friday destroyed a barn, killed nearly all of the animals inside it and caused approximately $200,000 in damage.
Fire crews received word of the fire on Wellington Road 8 around 6 p.m.
It’s believed the fire started while Melvin Martin’s daughter, the owner of the farm, was using a straw chopper to prepare bedding for the 72 cows that resided in the barn. 71 of which were lost in the fire.
“She was upstairs with the straw chopper and some smoke and sparks started to come up downstairs so we’re assessing that the straw chopper started the fire,” Rick Richardson, Mapleton Township Fire Rescue fire chief, told CTV News.
“The barn, the milk house, the feed room, the upstairs with the straw and downstairs with all the animals is totally gone,” Richardson said.
Cleaning up the rubble from a recent farm fire in Drayton.
Photo: Allison Tanner/CTV
Approximately 40 firefighters, some from neighbouring fire departments, helped control the fire, which had only taken minutes to engulf the entire barn.
“We got here probably half an hour later and the barn was already totally engulfed, and the roof was caved in,” Melvin Martin told CTV News. “There was lots of firemen and lots of people.”
No human injuries were reported.
CTV News reports plans to rebuild are already underway and the new barn could be up before winter.