A fire in the barn [Hoard's Dairyman Post]

Electrical fire serves as wake-up call.

Fire.

There might not be another word so capable of quickly igniting fear in the hearts of farmers.

I’m sure you can imagine the level of panic we felt after smelling smoke during milking one night last week. Our cows are housed in a tie stall barn during the winter and our baby calves are housed in an auto-feeder pen in the front section of our barn . . . so a fire in the barn would put a lot of animals in danger.

Although it first smelled like the smoke was coming from our hayloft, an electrical transformer in our utility room was quickly identified as the source. The transformer’s steel box had confined the flames, but the fire left a mess of smoldering and melted wires inside the box.

The fire also left us without a way to finish milking the cows...

[Read the rest of A fire in the barn here.]