I had just gotten home from my last planned errand on Sunday night and was getting ready to get in the shower. My phone rings and a bunch of my neices and step mom are on the phone. "Comp's barn is on fire!" Was all I heard. I called my cousin, who was on scene and asked him if they needed anything. He said "drinking water and coolers with ice." It was humid and pretty warm for late Sept. Then, my brother called and said he was at the store buying ice and water. I told him I had our huge cooler in my truck from an event the night prior. I met him in town, transfered everything and headed down. It was bad! The barns that housed the parlor and holding area were fully involved. This picture is from a neighbor about 1 mile away. Tons of fire fighters from all over northeast Ohio (Trumbull and Geauga) and western PA were either there or rolling in. The Youngstown Air Force Reserves even sent a tanker. It was chaotic to say the least. I parked in a field east of the barns. Luckily the free stall barns were untouched and most of the cows were there. This shot is from the next day. For reference, I was in the area of the red dot when I first showed up. Fire was beyond and to the right of the upright silo shown. My bother went to our farm up the road and got his UTV, met me and we transfered the cooler into it and he took my son and started getting bottled water, and eventually pizza that was donated, to the firefighters working the scene. I was making phone calls and replying to texts that were coming in when cattle trailers started showing up. Someone had put out the call since the parlor was inoperable and 1144 head of dairy cows needed milked. This quickly became a problem when those unfamiliar with the farm started trying to drive to the white barns using the road. Fire trucks were hauling water and being blocked. I had ny scanner app on and heard the frustration of the Sheriff dept and firefighter trying to get those folks from out of town to immediately drop into the field at the first driveway. I think that was the confusing part. Field drives don't look like driveways. I went to the eastern most drive of the field where I was and started directing trailers into the field. I think every available trailer in N.E. Ohio and western PA eventually showed up! Continued below in case there are pic restrictions in one post....
Sunday night ended for me at 1:30am Sat morning but the Comp family never slept. They spent the night loading trailers and logging where animals were going. This continued into Monday afternoon. Over night they were able to get semi trucks and find farms in Wanye and Holmes County with capacity to take 300/400 cows which made the logistics easier. The problem then became the sightseeing people jamming up the road. I was working with another local guy and trying to limit traffic when a Sheriff deputy was driving by and I flagged him down. Witnessing the challenge and heavy equipment, semi truck cattle trailers, tractors trying to care for the cows (dry and heifers) that were staying on-site, he worked with dispatch and allowed us to close the road on both ends. I stayed at one end using my truck to keep non-essential traffic out until things died down around 8 p.m. I did get a drone shot of the crane used to pluck the roof off the parlor. They had looked in, under the fallen roof, and thought it might be salvageable. Sayre Farms installs grain bins and they had their crane on a site less than 10 miles away that morning. It showed up. The goal that day was trying salvage the parlor, but until the collapsed roof was removed, they couldn't really tell. That took most of the day. This picture is out of sequence as I took it yesterday, but as you can see, the main parlor (they also have a smaller sick cow parlor that was destroyed) wasn't in terrible shape. The wind direction, fire sucking air (drafting) from the south side of barn, likely kept damage to a relative minimum. Once the roof was off, the heavy equipment went to work on the multi-day task of removing debris. Initially, it was Brittan farms bringing their big stuff as they also install field tiling systems. Then, the big boy on the block Ohio Cat stepped up and donated pretty much anything the Brittan boys asked for. Skid with hammer and grapple? Got it. 320 with Hammer and bucket? It's yours: Roller? Yep. Light towers are on the way, a scissor lift is on site and a regional oil company, Lyden Oil, is supplying fuel. Pretty dang amazing. The Comp daughters are SUPER concerned for the animals and have spent nearly every waking moment since Sunday night, making sure they are getting the care they need. This means hauling grain, bedding, and even tankers of water to fill ponds of some farms not geared for the increase herd size at their farms. These are unforseen costs that are likely not covered by their insurance policy. And insurance is slow to get $ in hand, they hadn't recieved anything as of 4pm yesterday when I left. The community has been jumping in eith food, water and monetary support, I was kind of surprised to see this at Hardee's in Jefferson. I'm not sure what the TOS are here on FWHC as far as posting links to fundraising, but if you have an inkling to help and you Google "Comp Family Farm Fire" and see these in your results, they are the legitimate sites. The facebook page has the bank info for those who don't use online cash systems. The other is for those comfortable with online stuff. Mods, if these are not allowed, please feel free to delete the images or alert me and I will. I won't post a direct link unless told it's OK. I will continue to add to this thread as things progress and I'm able to contribute to their rebuild.
Terrible thing to have to deal with, but it is awesome to see the community jump in and help. The only way through a difficult time is to do it together.
I heard about this through work earlier this week. Unfortunately, it isn’t uncommon. My first real job was on a farm where the house burned overnight; the milk room was connected to the house and to the barn. Heavy smoke damage to the milking equipment but the barn and cows were spared, and we were able to milk by late morning. My current boss’s family’s farm recently had a fire and lost a few. For those unfamiliar with the logistics, it is roughly 40 cows per semi. The cows will be stressed by the fire, possibly lung damage from smoke, stressed by the trucking, by the sudden change in feed and the routine at the new farm. There will be a large drop in milk production, losses in pregnancies, reduced fertility, etc etc.
The old Silo had to be dropped. The concrete was much more brittle near the area of fire than the rest of the structure. It's not all bad since the barns had been built around it over time and it was obsolete.
I didn't see the fire mentioned in the news but I saw an ad were they were looking for someto milk their cows because of a fire in the milking station
