Donald Martin was at a cattle auction in Stratton when he was informed that there was something wrong inside one of his barns, and returned home to find it ablaze.
After a family member noticed smoke pouring from their old barns, Martin’s brother dashed to the old part of the barn to move over 100 heads of cattle out.
“He ran into the old barn and opened up gates. All of our bigger heifers made it out. Then we ran into the older part, where we had our small milking calves kept. He kept opening gates, and it was just getting too cloudy,” said Martin, the owner of Windy Ridge Holstein.
Martin’s brother observed the structure of the barn beginning to fall all around him.
“That’s when he decided it was time to exit fast,” said Martin.
Luckily, Martin’s brother managed to get the cattle out of the old barn, but their work was far from finished. The new addition to the barn still had dairy cows left inside.
When Martin returned home, he found his brother opening the gates to all the stalls. The cows in that new section of the barn were nearly empty of livestock, but the fire was spreading fast.
“Getting the cows out wasn’t the problem. There was no smoke in that part of the barn. The breaker flipped at the pole already. So, it was all dark. No fans running. It was the only thing you would guess that was wrong,” he said.
Being captains for the local fire department, Martin and his brother called two other departments to ask for service. Firefighters in nearby Morley and Chapple came to Windy Ridge Holstein.
“We had our suits on and the first truck from Morley had pulled in,” said Martin.
With the barn being approximately 60 metres from Martin’s house, he said the heat from the fire beginning to melt the siding. Martin instructed the Morley fire department to save the house.
“He pulled up and he started hosing that down, and about that time, Chapple showed up. We set up and started to get ready to attack, but that time, the new barn was fully engulfed,” said Martin.
Knowing the barns were lost, Martin and his crew focused their efforts on the milk house.
“All the equipment there was saved. It took a lot of water. A lot of time, but we did save that,” Martin said.
During this horrific experience, Martin was tending to the fire, and trying his best to ensure that his cows weren’t harmed.
Martin acknowledged that if it wasn’t for the community coming to his aid, things could have gone differently.
“There were a lot of people that showed up in the community and our church people had kind of rounded up all the cows. They were keeping them in a group and they chased them back,” he said.
After the 70 milking cows were eventually loaded up onto trailers, Martin’s uncle called milk inspector John Guy. Martin was worried that the stress on the cows would spoil the milk, and he needed someone to ensure that didn’t happen.
Guy suggested to Martin that it would be a good idea to send the cows to a farm in Thunder Bay until he was able to house them once again.
“We had two farmers down there that consented to take them,” Martin said.
After news of the fire spread, Stratton cattle auction manager James Gibbs asked some of truckers to ship the cows to Thunder Bay.
“They were a tremendous blessing to me,” Martin said.
Although the fire was under control around 9 p.m. that evening, the overwhelming events of the day were much too unsettling for Martin. After a sleepless night, he spent most of Sunday figuring out what to do next. Then Monday would be spent cleaning up the debris.
“I thought it would take two or three days to clean up, but now it’s 3:30, Monday afternoon, and we are just about ready to start washing concrete,” said Martin.
Although both barns were a complete loss, Martin was thankful that none of his cows were harmed. As he begins to look ahead to a rebuild, Martin said he's grateful to the community for their efforts.
“We are hoping to rebuild on the same cement work if it’s possible. So far it looks pretty good, but we’ll have to wash it off and see how it looks,” said Martin.
Martin doesn’t know how the fire started. He assumes it was electrical, but he has confirmed that he doesn’t know for sure.
“It went so fast and so hard that it was nearly impossible to trace it back,” said Martin.
Despite feeling overwhelmed, Martin said he's thankful his cows are safe and taken care of, and he's optimistic Windy Ridge Holstein will continue to flourish.
