Investigators Still Looking For Cause Of Barn Fire

By Andrew Gorosko

Fire investigators this week continued probing for the cause of a major blaze which destroyed a large horse barn December 30 at Foxview Farm on Hundred Acres Road.

Deputy Fire Marshal Bill Halstead said Thursday a fire investigator for the firm that insured the horse barn was working among the ruins of the structure, which was completely destroyed by the fire.

As of Thursday morning, no cause for the fire had been established.

The insurance company may bring in some heavy equipment to remove fire debris in searching for the cause of the blaze, Mr Halstead said.

Although fire investigators have found the electrical wiring that led to the barn, they have not yet located the electrical control panel that was in the barn, Mr Halstead said.

Finding that electrical panel could prove time-consuming because it may be buried under a massive amount of fire debris. Debris at the fire scene is more than six feet deep in places, Mr Halstead said.

The cause of the fire does not appear to be suspicious, Mr Halstead said. But, he added, “We have not ruled anything out at this time.”

Besides the many hay bales, which were kept in the horse barn, the building held a large amount of sawdust, materials that fueled the towering fire that took about three hours to get under control.

The town has asked Judith and Robert Homes, who own the 70-acre farm at 25 Hundred Acres Road, to have a structural engineer check on the stability of two concrete silos near the barn, which were exposed to the fire, Mr Halstead said.

The value of the damage caused by the fire was not available. Fire Marshal George Lockwood has estimated that the blaze caused well over $100,000 in damage.

The massive fire engulfed the barn on the afternoon and night of December 30, following a heavy snowstorm. The fire did not injure the barn’s eight horses, which were outside the building when the 3:39 pm fire call came in. Firemen prevented the fire from spreading to nearby farm buildings. One firefighter received minor injuries in battling the blaze. Firefighters returned to the farm several times after the fire to extinguish barn debris that had reignited.

About 50 firefighters in 13 fire trucks from eight volunteer fire companies responded to the fire, which was the biggest blaze in the Dodgingtown fire district since an October 1996 fire in which a tanker truck carrying 9,000 gallons of gasoline crashed and exploded near the intersection of Route 302 and Hattertown Road.

Judith Holmes has said that she and Mr Holmes plan to build a new horse barn to replace the building lost in the fire.