Multiple fire departments joined the South Huron Fire Department in an effort to extinguish a straw and hay shelter that ignited on Sunday, July 9.
The battle came to an end around 9 p.m. on Monday, July 10, nearly 24 hours later.
"Everything went extremely well," said Jeremy Becker, South Huron Fire Chief. "We brought in our mutual aid partners from everywhere around us."
The departments that joined on scene were Bayfield, Hensall, Zurich, Dashwood, Brucefield, Seaforth, Grand Bend, Granton, Lucan Biddulph, Ailsa Craig, and Mitchell. South Huron was on scene since 10:30 p.m. July 9.
"The guys were getting fairly tired and needed to be spelled off," Becker said. "We're thankful that they had manpower available to do that."
Through the night on July 10, crews remained on scene to keep an eye on hot spots. Becker added they put four loads of water on it to keep anymore potential ignitions at bay. Firefighters will continue to monitor it over the next few days in collaboration with the property owner.
With all of the other fire departments involved, a significant amount of water was needed to put out the blaze.
"I was doing some calculations this morning," he said. "We're probably in excess of two million litres now. Everybody's got different sized trucks. Some of the trucks hauled almost 100 loads of water over the 24 hour period."
Becker said he hadn't checked the mileage on the trucks at the time of speaking, but the fuel truck came on scene four times to fill the firetrucks.
"[Barn fires] are painful but it is what it is," he said. "You can't just let it burn because you have a cattle barn with 2000 head of cattle beside it with a fabric roof. If the wind changed, then you'd really be having trouble."
The cattle barn was unscathed in the fire. The amount of damage remains around $2-2.5 million.
"The wind was in our favour the majority of the time," said Becker. "We were really fortunate that the wind worked with us. It did blow a little bit of smoke into the barn every once in a while, very light smoke, but his fans in there took it out right away."
After a long battle, the firefighters that partook are now back to work at their full-time jobs.
"We had people that had to leave through the day yesterday to go to work," Becker said. "One of my firefighters in Exeter is a nurse. She worked a night shift last night after being at the fire all night. These are good members of our community, they go back to work after fighting the fire all night. I know there will be a lot of guys and gals that will be tired, but this is what we do."
Becker expressed his gratitude for the community employers that allow them to go off and help their community.
He also cited how important the regular training is that is conducted, so the crews know exactly what to do with a fast response time in these situations.
