The recent posts about barn fires has got me thinking. I am starting to realize that many people are uneducated about fire prevention and potential fire hazards. Perhaps we could use this thread to talk about potential fire hazards, what to watch out for, and good tips on preventing barn fires.
Things like cob webs, lack of fire extinguishers, etc. Everything from seemingly simple things to other things most of us wouldn’t think about.
<BLOCKQUOTE class=“ip-ubbcode-quote”><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Posse977:
I am also a firefighter. My current farm is way at the back of an estate, and there is no way that an engine would be able to get back there. The nearest hydrant (we are lucky enough to have hydrants) is across the street. If there was a fire at my house or barn, it would mean hand jacking hose a minimum of 700’. To top it off, before I started working for the city, no one- neither police not fire- knew that my house/barn existed.
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700’ of line to lay in??? OUCH!!! Could you possibly get old hose from your department that has been taken out of service and an old nozzle? Just an idea but if you get enough hose to lay in a single hand line you can make a cart to store it on up at the barn. Maybe set it up in a minute man load. In an emergency you can drop the minute man load at the top and run the cart from the barn down to where the apparatus will be laying down the line as you go. It would be a quick way to at least get a single hand line up and running until you can lay in more line by hand.
**“You are under arrest for operating your mouth under the influence of ignorance!” MPD Officer Beck
**“Member of the COTH Law Enforcement clique!”
**“Member of the Western clique”
I don’t think cob webs are combustible, but their presence CAN indicate a less clean and well kept (and more dusty) environment.
I’m wondering about the insurance ramifications of keeping hay in a barn’s loft…will an insurance company allow this?
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This is a great thread… so I will do my part in bumping it 
I think there are some insurance companies that have lower rates or will only insureyou if you have your hay stored at least 75 or 100 ft from the barn. Hay is onething that is just waiting to burn.
-No smoking. (big fat duh)
-store hay in a seperatebuilding
-reduce cobwebs
-reduce clutter (in the event of a fire stuff isnt in the way)
-always always have a halter and lead on every stall door for each horse to be prepared for any emergency!!
I know this is OT but please y’all have leg straps on your blankets! My sister lost her horse to a broken neck because his blanket slipped (it had no leg straps!) EVEN ifthey are in the barn… b/c if there is a fire and your horse has to make a quick escape it can be ugly if his blanket slips! (see I can make almost anything related)
Oh yeah- don’t leave toasters with poptarts in them alon…um… in the barn… (I amost burned down my house when I left poptarts in the toaster alone… fr 2 seconds… I swear)
“When life gives you lemons, make margaritas!”
Tom Gumbrect - I hope you are still reading so you can answer my questions. You mention putting wiring in PVC. This puzzles me as I though wiring in a barn should be in metal conduit. The barn where our horses are has wiring in metal conduit. Is there some reason PVC is preferable over metal? It would seem to me that PVC would be too easily broken/crushed by a hoof or even strong jaws & teeth.
How can underground conduit be safe? It is my understanding that the insulation is subject to being chewed by squirrels, rats, etc. & thus this presents a big danger of fire.
You don’t even mention GFI outlets which I would think would help prevent fires as well as shocks. The barn where our horses are has all GFI outlets (except the outlet in the ceiling for the electric fence charger).
Also, all the outlets & switches have covers (“wet area application”) & I would think this would be a good thing for any barn. This barn was wired less than 3 years ago by a licensed electrician who is also a farmer, but I would be interested in your comments as to whether there is a better way to do things.
Yes, he used circuit breakers, of course.
www.rougelandfarm.com Home of TB stallion Alae Rouge, sire of our filly Rose, ribbon-winner on the line at Dressage at Devon.
Yeah- it’s pretty bad! We are working on plans for something similar to what you suggested, but I fear we won’t get it done. We will be moving in a couple of months.
The new barn will be interesting- no hydrant, no on property water source. It’s a township and they are VERY adept at water shuttling. Luckily, the closest drafting source is not far up the road- and the FD is just past that.
Where I used to board was an old dairy barn, chock full of old hay on the loft floors (there were 2 hay lofts in the BIG barn). The owners lived on -site and the power to all the barns was shut off after the last barn check, about 12-1am. The old owner would check the 18 stall big barn , the 5 stall shed row, 6 stall lower barn- EVERY night 365 days a year, top off water and maybe hay again. Breakfast was at 6am. We did have fire extinguishers around, nobody smoked, and we did do cobweb patrol . Having control of electricity was alittle piece of mind. And, all the horses were used to being led to the door with a lead rope around the neck, or over the nose .
I forgot about manure piles! At a barn I used to work at we had the fire dept out 2x in one HOT summer to put out our manure pile… it wasn’t exactly on FIRE… but smoldering (alot) nonetheless The manure pile was very large to say the least and it resided on top of a nice pile of logs. poor management IMO.
“When life gives you lemons, make margaritas!”
Tanker shuttles,ugh!!! Granted they aren’t that bad, but usually these end up being on the nights where the temps are freezing and everything just turns to ice!! Thankfully you have a good drafting location nearby, that is half the battle.
Good to know that my post before at least made sense to you!! Good luck with everything.
**“You are under arrest for operating your mouth under the influence of ignorance!” MPD Officer Beck
**“Member of the COTH Law Enforcement clique!”
**“Member of the Western clique”
I’m pretty sure cobwebs aren’t combustible, but they can trap little bits of combustible material - wood dust, hay, etc. So they are holding lots of dry kindling.
Moonkitty- that was me.
I am also a firefighter. My current farm is way at the back of an estate, and there is no way that an engine would be able to get back there. The nearest hydrant (we are lucky enough to have hydrants) is across the street. If there was a fire at my house or barn, it would mean hand jacking hose a minimum of 700’. To top it off, before I started working for the city, no one- neither police not fire- knew that my house/barn existed.
Have your local FD out to your barn. They can give you some tips on making it safer, plus, they will know your layout, how many horses are there, and the easiest way to deal with your horses. For example, my FD knows to “get the white horse first” and the rest will follow. They know where to shoo them to- two places, depending on the fire and wind direction, where the electric is, and that the fences are electric. They know that the hay is stored upstairs in the loft, and that the whole place will go up very, very quickly. All they will be able to do, is, hopefully, get the boys out and keep the fire from spreading to the exposures.
I am a member of our local fire department as a firefighter and public educator. Due to my involvement in horses I have a Barn Fire Safety Talk that I present to horse owners, horse clubs, stables, etc. It covers everything from maintenance of the barn & surrounding areas, training horses to be lead out during a fire, fire extinquisher use & placement and ways to make your property more accessible for the fire department in case of an emergency.
I would suggest that people interested in learning about this information to contact your local Fire Department and ask if there is an existing program or if one can be set up.
Our club has also held several horse rescue/fire awareness meetings with local fire people. Here are a couple of tips they passed along to us.
They felt cobwebs ARE combustible and do collect shmutz which will also burn. Added point… don’t let “stuff” pile up in tackrooms or corners of the barn.
Make sure they can find your place AND get in the driveway. Farms (particularly private ones) are often down a long driveway. Is there a clear marking identifying the farm or at least house number at the road edge? Is the opening to the driveway wide enough for a fire truck to make the turn off a narrow road (often with ditches on each side in NJ). Do you have decorative columns at the drive end or a gate that might be closed? Make sure firefighters can get onto the property.
When we asked the local fire marshall to do this talk the first time, he was particularly observant when traveling around for a week or so before the talk and noticed that there are a lot of LONG barns with openings to the outside only at either end. It could be difficult to get the horses in the middle out in the event of a fire. Think about it.
From a comment at the first meeting from the audience. Talk to the barn (or yourself) and set up and practice some sort of fire drill. Is there a priority in getting the horses out? Where are they going once out - don’t just turn them loose - they can run out onto the road or get in the way of the firefighters. This person went to school at U VT who holds regular firedrills at their barns.
Be safe out there.
The sad thing is, after watching a barn burn. (it was old, half full of bad hay and that was the way they demolished it, sad) It goes up very quickly, the heat is tremendous, you would not have much time to do much, even if you noticed it right away. This was a large old bank barn.
Prevention is the key.
There is just as much horse sense as ever, but the horses have most of it.
Standardbred clique
Just wanted to add – if you have your local fire department out to the barn, also help them understand a bit more about your horses, your barn, your schedule.
Do the horses go out at night? or are they in the barn?
Where are halters kept? How can they make an emergency halter out of rope or twine?
Where is hay stored?
Etc.
–R
Educating staff and boarders on what to do if a fire is found. Post the 911 address by the phone, memories fail at the worst times.
Where the fire extinguishers are, its scary when there is not one to be found, and how to cut the power if needed.
I speak from experience, I am sad to say.
There is just as much horse sense as ever, but the horses have most of it.
Standardbred clique
Don’t just post the 911 number near the phone. Also post the street address of the barn and directions to the barn if appropriate. I’m much more likely to remember 911 than I am to know the street address and nearest cross roads of the barn.
EvaleeHunter
Thank you for your post. Some of the topics your questions refer to were covered in the additional articles I referred to. I just copied the first article in the series for this BB.
Anyway, I’ll try to answer as best I can.
Metal conduit has not been an acceptable wiring method in agricultural buildings for the last few code cycles. (Article 547, National Electrical Code, NFPA). Austensibly because metal in an environment like a barn, with high moisture content, corrosive atmosphere, and temperature variations, causes corrosion in the conduit.(Although they don’t tell us why they make the changes usually)By the way, code changes are generally not retroactive, so if it was legal when you did it you’re generally OK)
Yes, absolutely GFI outlets are required, and AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter) circuit breakers, although not required, afford even more protection. I devoted an entire article to them, I just didn’t include it here.
Similarly, yes absolutely, wet location covers are required. I just didn’t intend for this to be a comprehensive set of instructions about how to wire a barn, merely an overview and a description of how I assess a barn electrically)
Yes, Type UF-B (“Underground Romex”) is permitted in an agricultural building> It is much tougher than the “Romex” used in houses, and my experience is that the rodents don’t usually chew it like they would “Romex”. It is required that mechanical prtection be added where the cable is subject to damage, and that, to most inspectors, means sleeving it up to a point 8’ above the floor with PVC conduit. For that reason, we just go ahead and do the whole job in PVC Conduit ususally.
Since I wrote that article, a new product has been approved for barns. It is PVC-coated MC Cable. If you think of “BX” cable that has been dipped in PVC, you won’t be too far off. It is good, but both the cable and the fittings are expensive. I would save this for those instances where conduit just won’t work, such as snaking into a wall cavity.
I hope I’ve been helpful. Like I said, I didn’t mean to cover everything but I thank you for pointing out areas where people might need more information.
I was surprised that it took so long for someone to question the metal conduit thing. When I give talks, people usually question that right away!
Tom G.
As has been said before, it’s only a job if you’d rather be doing something else.
A major cause of many fires is the use (or misuse) of extension cords!! When using extension cords around the barn, or even your house, never overload them!!! Yes, they have more then one plug, but that doesn’t mean it can safely handle the load that is put on it.
Make sure you have the correct gauge cord for the type of use/ or appliance that is going to be plugged into it.
Also make sure that your cords don’t get closed in anything and pinched! Make sure your tack trunk lid doesn’t come down on the cord and damage it, or close a door or window on it. Damage to the cord can also start a fire!!
this is a public service message from your local 911 dispatcher/firefighter!!*** 
**“You are under arrest for operating your mouth under the influence of ignorance!” MPD Officer Beck
**“Member of the COTH Law Enforcement clique!”
**“Member of the Western clique”
That is what I am I meant, the 911 street number. Every address here has a number posted at the road for emergency vehicles, how many people can remember the address in an emergency. Having it posted outside the barn as well, is handy when you have to be outside the barn for safety.
There is just as much horse sense as ever, but the horses have most of it.
Standardbred clique
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