12/04/2011 – Structure Fire – “B” Shift

Incident # 11-06404 - An eighty year old  barn was destroyed and 90 baby turkeys lost their lives in a mid morning fire at a farm on Keegan Drive. Fire-Rescue was alerted for the fire at 08:07 Sunday morning 4-Decmeber. Engine 19 arrived at 1475 Keegan Drive to find the barn approximately 70% involved. Light winds pushed flames 30 feet from the building, igniting several hay bales, a small storage building and impinged on a LP tank. Firefighters deployed multiple hand lines to protect the exposures, cool the LP tank and battle the blaze in the 30 x 50 foot wood and metal building. Most of the structure was destroyed. One of the owners advised she was making early morning rounds to check on the livestock when she noticed smoke coming from the barn. On inspection she discovered a lamp had fallen over igniting the saw dust on the floor. She was able to extinguish the fire inside the building with a garden hose, but the fire had extended under the floor and burned into a wall. She quickly chased several turkeys out of the building, called 9-1-1 and moved two vehicles away from the building. 

The old wooden structure burned quickly as the fire spread into a workshop on the left of the barn. Firefighters were able to stop the fire from destroying a supply room on the right side of the building sparing several hundred pounds of feed. Crewmembers covered the bags of feed with salvage covers to prevent them from being soaked by the water streams. All of the tools and appliances in the work shop were burned. Firefighters unrolled the bales of hay to completely extinguish the fire in the center of the bales. Only nine of the baby turkeys were recovered unharmed.

Engine 5, Engine 19, Tender 1, Tender 5, Tender 9, Tender 903, Tender 19, Tender 26, Tender 27, Medic 19, Battalion 1 and Car 12 responded. Firefighter-EMT Bryon Martinson and Battalion Chief Ben Heape operated Incident Command.