When you walk around your farm yard, are you thinking about fire safety? Are you thinking about fires starting in your yard and equipment, maybe the hay shed or barn? What about fires that could threaten your farm from outside sources? How fire ready is your farm?
You can use Google to search for “farm fire preparedness” and get about 3 million hits in a second or two. Many publications and websites are dedicated to this important safety issue. Yet how many producers are taking the time to really read them, and then go out into their yard and put that knowledge to use? Are you?
There are some very basic things you can do to ensure that you are keeping your farm fire ready. These are as simple as safe storage of flammables such as chemicals, fuels and feed sources. Having fire extinguishers and suppression systems is vital.
Your response to a fire depends a lot on what type of farm you have. Livestock or grain, do you have processing or storage on your farm? Are you close to town or operating in a more isolated area? Even your geographic area is a critical point in determining the fire readiness of your farm.
Field and Farmyard
Your fields can be a huge fuel source for a fire. You know this if you burn stubble as a measure for on-field trash management. If you live near a city your fire days are dictated by the wind direction so smoke isn’t pouring into town. Dried grass, brush and stubble, even standing ripe crops, are vulnerable to fires.
When you stand in your farmyard and look out at the fields, if there was a fire, where would you plough a fire break? Do your fields come right up to the windbreak in your yard? Do you have a dugout or pond to pump water from? Have you noticed in which season you get the strongest and driest winds? Fire fighting in southern Alberta for a number of years taught me to learn about wind. A Chinook wind can take the smallest spark and raise it into a many hours long wildland fire in a very short period of time.
A farm yard can be a fire trap or it can be defended against a fire in the field. Planning ahead and the correct placement of resources can make all the difference. Most importantly though is the actual practice of protecting your fields and farmyard. Practice.
Test your ability to hook up the tractor and discer. How quickly could you do it safely? Can you create a fire break around your yard? Or is that area cluttered with discarded equipment and other debris? Are the gates wide enough for you to reach all the areas in good time?
Have a pump and some hose? Great! When was the last time you fired it up and tested it? A pump that won’t fire and hose with holes or cracks is more useless than no pump or hose. If you don’t have them you won’t be counting on them. If you do have them and they don’t work you’ve wasted valuable time fooling around with them.
Do you have an evacuation plan for the farmyard? Who stays to keep things wet and plough fire breaks, who leaves to safety? When you are leaving your farm, know where the evacuation centre is, ensure you can reach it by the usual routes and have an alternate if the regular way is blocked by fire or smoke.
If you take a piece of paper and draw a map of your farm, can you mark the year round roads, water sources, hazards to fire fighting equipment (ditches, fences, seasonal roads, etc) and other important features like the gas shut off, the storage area for chemicals and fuels, the location of any animals and most importantly your escape routes from the farm.
A fire in the field can start while baling, combining or by another source such as an ATV exhaust. Knowing what to do while the fire is small is critical in keeping it under control. At no time should you risk your own health or safety. Equipment can be replaced. Crops regrown. Animals can be replaced as well. People cannot. Your family will not skip mourning you because you died saving the new tractor.
Barn and Livestock
Livestock are very vulnerable in fires to injury and death. Their housing is fraught with danger as it is filled with both fuel and ignition sources. It is also very difficult to remove animals from many modern farm buildings. Most farm yards with multiple animal buildings are not designed with fire fighting in mind, they are not designed with evacuation or containment of animals in an emergency either. No one wants to think of the ‘bad stuff’ when they are working hard at farming. That is human nature. It is also wrong.
We need to consider how we will take care of our animals in the event of an on farm or off farm fire threat. More than consider, you need to plan for it. Barn fires are as different as the varied barn designs you see everywhere. Each has a strong point and a number of weaknesses as well. You know your barn better than most. But if you aren’t there, who is going to know what to do? You may have a top notch fire plan but have you shared it with your local fire department, your neighbors or caretakers of your animals? If it is to be effective they need to know it and have a copy as well. Their lives could depend upon it.
Field and Farm
Livestock in each can be facing very different threats from a fire. And they will respond in a myriad of ways. There is no set way or understanding of how animals will react in a fire. There is, however, some common reactions to fire by livestock.
Fight or Flight
Animals do one of these, sometimes one right after the other. They will run away from danger that they cannot fight. But a fire is not truly seen as a danger to most domestic animals. The fire fighters, the outside noise, lights and sounds of human panic are understood as danger. Their instinct to go to a ‘safe place’ is strong and tragically that place is the very barn you are trying to save them from.
Animal owners owe it to themselves and their animals to take some time to research on line and take available courses in animal emergencies that are offered both privately, through fire departments as well as government offices. Knowing how to prepare your horse barn, for example, with fire halters and proper strategies for calming moving animals can save their lives and yours.
We’ve all seen on the news the horrific barn fires in which hundreds or thousands of confinement system animals perish. Fire fighters stand helplessly as the barn burns to the ground. Farmers mourn the loss of their animals. What can we do? Better alarms, fire walls, reducing fuel load and ignition sources. Making sure that a barn can be ‘shut off’ in sections so that the fire cannot control the entire facility. These barn fires are examples of buildings not designed for preservation of life for animals nor are they designed for fire control by sector.
Livestock on the open range face tragically different dangers in a wildland fire. Wildland fires will push animals to higher ground or against fences that they cannot see to jump over. They may become entangled in partially burnt fences. I’ve personally seen cattle with their legs burnt off from extremely fast moving grass fires without even having soot on their faces. Some horses and cattle if given a chance in open country can instinctively find safety, but this is not a strategy you can count on. Fences, natural barriers and factors such as noise, wind, water bombers and smoke can disorient, confuse and panic animals back into the fire they were fleeing.
It is important to note that with people and animals smoke inhalation is very often the cause of death in a fire. Toxic smoke suffocates many long before the fire reaches them. Animals that are ‘rescued’ from smoke will often require treatment, and sometimes euthanasia, due to smoke damage.
Livestock owners need to be prepared for losses during a fire and sometimes long after. Planning ahead can reduce this but until we can eliminate fires from our farms we won’t be able to eliminate the deadly impact they have on our farms and communities.
Never allow someone into a burning building to ‘save’ an animal. This is a strong instinct but it is also a deadly one. People can be overcome quickly with smoke, be disoriented and get lost requiring rescue themselves.
We can reduce the risk to our farms, our crops and animals by planning ahead, working with local emergency services and practicing our farm emergency plans. Can you put on a fire halter in the dark? Do you know the escape routes from your barn blindfolded and on your hands and knees? Do you know where and how to plough a fire break? Does that pump work and is the hose in good shape? Are you physically and mentally able to fight the fire on your farm or do you need to concentrate on evacuating your family and animals to safety?
Life and safety first. Your family can rebuild property and replace animals and equipment. They cannot replace you.
