Horses Unhurt In Blaze –

Fire Destroys Barn

At Foxview Farm

By Andrew Gorosko

A towering fire engulfed a hay-filled horse barn at Foxview Farm at 25 Hundred Acres Road on the afternoon and night of Saturday, December 30. It burned the structure to ground, but fortunately the fire did not injure the barn’s eight horses, which were being kept in a nearby field.

Dozens of firefighters from Dodgingtown, Newtown Hook and Ladder, Botsford, Sandy Hook, Hawleyville, Stony Hill, Bethel, and Redding Ridge responded to the 3:39 pm fire call, which alerted them that the large horse barn at the Holmes property was ablaze.

The barn fire was the most extensive blaze in the Dodgingtown fire district since the October 1996 inferno at George’s Restaurant on Route 302, which was caused by a crashed gasoline tanker truck, said Dodgingtown Fire Chief David Cain. 

More fire equipment was sent to the barn fire than to any local fire in recent memory.

Fire Marshal George Lockwood said he is investigating the cause of the fire, which is not considered suspicious. One fireman received a minor injury in fighting the blaze. The Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps treated him at the scene.

A specific damage value on the insured property was not available. Mr Lockwood estimated that the blaze caused well over $100,000 in damage.

Chief Cain, the incident commander, said fighting the blaze proved difficult due to the huge amount of winter hay that had caught fire. It took about three hours to get the fire under control, he said. About 50 firefighters responded to the call, arriving in 13 fire vehicles, he said.  

“You could literally feel the heat down on Hundred Acres Road. That’s probably 100 or 150 feet away,” he said.

The complexity of fighting the fire was compounded by questions about the stability of two tall concrete silos, which were brushed by flames from the blaze, he said.

Newtown Hook Ladder firefighters extended the aerial ladder from their ladder truck to create a raised hose position from which to battle the barn fire.

The presence of snow on the ground kept brush fires from starting in the area, Chief Cain said.

The eight horses that were displaced by the fire were transported to other facilities in the area, he said.

Judith Holmes, who owns the 70-acre farm with her husband, Robert, said Tuesday they plan to build a new horse barn to replace the structure lost in the blaze.

Town Building Official Tom Paternoster said he will ask the Holmeses to have a structural engineer inspect the two large concrete silos, which were exposed to the intense fire, to determine whether they can be saved.

Firefighters returned to Foxview Farm at 1:48 pm Tuesday on a report of smoldering hay, marking one of several trips they had made to the site to put out fires which had rekindled amid the massive pile of charred hay bales.

After their departure from the destroyed barn about 1 am Sunday, firefighters returned there at 4:26 am and 10:48 am that day to extinguish smoldering ruins.

The large, red two-story horse barn, which formerly served as a cow barn, was fully involved in flames when firemen arrived, Fire Marshal Lockwood said. The blaze proved very difficult to put out, considering that the intense flames were fueled by a huge amount of hay kept in the barn for horses. Winds contributed to the intensity of the blaze.

Firefighters wetted down two nearby barns to prevent them from catching fire, Mr Lockwood said.

To fight the blaze, firemen drew water from a farm pond, and also trucked in water from a pond on Ox Hill Road.

Mrs Holmes said, “We were lucky that the horses were not in [the barn]” at the time of the fire. Had the fire started at night, the animals would have been in the barn and would have been lost in the blaze, she said. Mrs Holmes is a member of the town’s Conservation Commission.

The Holmeses were out of the area when the fire occurred.

Fortunately, the winds were blowing away from the other farm buildings, sparing them from being damaged in the fire, Mrs Holmes said

 Gregory McAvoy, a furniture maker who lives in a small house at the farm, said that after learning of the fire, he opened the barn’s doors and saw that the building was full of smoke. Fortunately, there were no animals inside at the time.

Mr McAvoy said he then saw the eight horses in a nearby field.

Hundred Acres Road is a street that normally carries little traffic. During the fire, it was filled with fire vehicles. Town highway workers had made a special effort to keep Hundred Acres Road plowed after the snowstorm to allow emergency vehicles to pass.

Mr McAvoy credited firefighters with working effectively to prevent the blaze from spreading to other structures on the farm and potentially causing far more damage.

The Newtown Bridle Lands Association, a local equine group, is coordinating a collection of donated items which would be useful in a barn or tack room for Foxview Farm. For details, contact group president Cindy Miller at 426-2655.