http://www.thehorsetrot.com/a-must-print-barn-fire-safety-checklist-for-every-horse-and-barn-owner/
I want to add, try to build with materials and building principles for barns that help avoid and/or control fires.
There is no reason today for anyone to store hay in a loft above a barn and other such fire prone practices.
Build with materials that are as fire proof as you can use.
[QUOTE=Bluey;7795182]
There is no reason today for anyone to store hay in a loft above a barn and other such fire prone practices. [/QUOTE]
Actually, yes there are good reasons to build with a loft on your barn. Mainly it is a LOT more cost effective, to go up, rather than out, in building expenses. Much cheaper to put up higher walls, loft area that doesn’t leak dust down, than to make a much bigger footprint in a barn.
Second would be time saving. You can move hay 8-10ft, then drop your hay into the aisle chute or down corner chutes of the stalls in only a few minutes. Saves hauling the hay to stall area, then to stalls. Especially helpful in cold, snowy locations so you are not outside fighting DEEP snow, ice, to get hay from another location to the horse barn.
Barn designs vary from area to area, because local conditions are never the same to keep the animals comfortably, be easy to work in with your weather. I wouldn’t want to have a shedrow barn here, all that exposed area I would need to trek thru to clean stalls, haul hay and water, watch snow drift into making things even worse! While in hot location, any breezy, open barn is best to prevent overheating and just shading the animals.
In real life it is EASY to say “this is best” but not have it workable. Most of us have limited barn chore time, so we want to save minutes from becoming hours, do things right the first time thru. I am extremely serious about keeping aisle open and not cluttered, almost nothing hanging on doors or walls to get caught on. Hay stored out of the aisle, but close to hand. BIG aisle at 12ft, for daily driving thru cleaning stalls, tacking or hitching up driving horses. Having to go to another barn for hay DAILY, thru various depths of snow would make things take too long in doing chores. It is COLD out there, often below zero, may have 3+ft of snow to get thru!! Not a reasonable method for us. Wish I had a loft!
Part of reducing fire danger is keeping things CLEAN! Many posts have been written about how folks get OCD on their cleaning methods in the barn. It is to reduce dust and aid in reducing fire hazards.
Have any of you recently cleaned your light fixtures, dusted the rafters (Try using the leaf blower or shop vac), removed cobwebs? Is there storage in another building for gas powered machinery? Is aisle kept CLEAN, no dirt or material that can get heated by gas machines and catch fire if you park on the aisle for a short time? Do you even HAVE fire extinguishers (big ones, not pop can size) hanging by entry doors, easily reached? Have you checked them recently for mud wasps? I found mud in my spray nozzles, while checking the extingquishers each month over the summer, when looking at the pressure gauge to make sure they would work if needed. Shake the extinguisher around each time you check it, keeps the powder from settling hard inside so loose powder is sprayable if needed. Use A-B-C extinguishers that put out all kinds of fires.
The above were HUGE points in the fire prevention talk I attended, especially aimed at horse people.
Forgot to mention a number of items on that list are unusable to me. Sprinkler system would only be usable six months of the year, frozen the rest. Again, guess the recommends for the list totally depend on your location. Not mentioned are a safety paddock to put led horses into AWAY from the barn. A runout is NOT helpful in getting animal far enough away from the barn, and horse WILL go back inside if scared. Horses need to go AWAY from barn, be safely contained to protect Fire persons from getting run down. Signage of stored fuel locations (should be another building), how many animals, having CLEAR exits in the barn, are also helpful.
[QUOTE=goodhors;7795493]
Actually, yes there are good reasons to build with a loft on your barn. Mainly it is a LOT more cost effective, to go up, rather than out, in building expenses. Much cheaper to put up higher walls, loft area that doesn’t leak dust down, than to make a much bigger footprint in a barn.
Second would be time saving. You can move hay 8-10ft, then drop your hay into the aisle chute or down corner chutes of the stalls in only a few minutes. Saves hauling the hay to stall area, then to stalls. Especially helpful in cold, snowy locations so you are not outside fighting DEEP snow, ice, to get hay from another location to the horse barn.[/QUOTE]
I think Bluey’s point was that as far as fire safety is concerned, hay is pretty much #1. It’s by far the most combustible material in any barn, will light up the fastest, spread the fastest and create the most damage in the least amount of time. Once started, it’s almost impossible to stop.
So in terms of daily practicality? It’s absolutely more convenient. But in terms of fire safety? Hells no; it’s by far the most dangerous set up.
Of the two barns I know of that have burned down, both fires were electrical. The origin of both fires were very near hay storage. Both barns had full hay lofts. Both cases were considered total losses before the fire crew even got there. It took less than 1:30 for one of the barns to go up entirely. Both fire crews would have told you that major hay storage in the barn is a big no-no.
Most folks that I know of who have external storage sheds for their hay have them within 100 ft of the barn. They store about a weeks worth of hay in the barn, and refill each week. Perhaps it’s more work overall, but I’d rather have peace of mind, if we’re being honest. And I live in the Northeast, where snow and ice and cold are a big factor.
Is the 1:30 minutes or hours, to have barn fully engulfed in flames or totally burn down?
Our speaker, said that within 5 minutes, the barn (loft or no loft) is unsafe to enter because of the heat. Any horses or equipment inside is not savable. Going in will burn your lungs out, same with horses who might still be inside. A fire person with tank, mask, might be able to stay inside one more minute, but no longer before things start falling down.
Many folks have to use the barn they have. They do the best they can in cleaning it, reducing possible hazards, which is why I mentioned a few items to check out. But the idea of building new “safer” barns is way beyond many folks budgets, as well as they just do not have the land room for another barn.
Those other ideas, like a post to suck water out of creeks or ponds, are not cheap or possible in many locations. Along with that, those locations need to be checked, certified clean, for many Fire Departments to use them. That detail came up at our Fire Talk. Having a road with good surface to prevent Fire Truck from getting stuck is not cheap either, Truck weighs A LOT!! Our drive is wide and solid enough to support a loaded semi truck all the way to the barn. If truck can’t get close to the barn, it takes longer to get water down the drive to start working on the fire. Everything is measured in minutes, and you don’t get many of them to be effective with the fire. Water carried on the Truck only will last a few minutes, which is why having other water sources is so important.
Guess you have to make choices, know that your barn is probably not going to make it if a fire should happen. One has to be realistic about their money resources, can’t always have a new barn. Have to make the one you have work.
Common sense safety practices are also critical. The barn I board at is very good about this. However, at other barns I’ve seen some things that would make a fire marshall cringe:
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Space heater with semi-exposed heating coils running 24/7 in the barn bathroom to keep it warm.
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Electrical fencing left to spark in an area where there is tall grass right next to it.
Barn fires scare the absolute crap out of me. I’ve been through it, scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. There wasn’t really much we could have done to prevent it happening, but I tell you what, I never want to put my horse in a wooden barn again. I’d have nightmares, no doubt about it.
I’ve got a metal fireproofed stable now.
[QUOTE=goodhors;7796461]
Is the 1:30 minutes or hours, to have barn fully engulfed in flames or totally burn down?
Our speaker, said that within 5 minutes, the barn (loft or no loft) is unsafe to enter because of the heat. Any horses or equipment inside is not savable. Going in will burn your lungs out, same with horses who might still be inside. A fire person with tank, mask, might be able to stay inside one more minute, but no longer before things start falling down.
Many folks have to use the barn they have. They do the best they can in cleaning it, reducing possible hazards, which is why I mentioned a few items to check out. But the idea of building new “safer” barns is way beyond many folks budgets, as well as they just do not have the land room for another barn.
Those other ideas, like a post to suck water out of creeks or ponds, are not cheap or possible in many locations. Along with that, those locations need to be checked, certified clean, for many Fire Departments to use them. That detail came up at our Fire Talk. Having a road with good surface to prevent Fire Truck from getting stuck is not cheap either, Truck weighs A LOT!! Our drive is wide and solid enough to support a loaded semi truck all the way to the barn. If truck can’t get close to the barn, it takes longer to get water down the drive to start working on the fire. Everything is measured in minutes, and you don’t get many of them to be effective with the fire. Water carried on the Truck only will last a few minutes, which is why having other water sources is so important.
Guess you have to make choices, know that your barn is probably not going to make it if a fire should happen. One has to be realistic about their money resources, can’t always have a new barn. Have to make the one you have work.[/QUOTE]
I don’t speak of “using the barns they have”, but of building a barn, today, with what we know.
Every one of us will have our own experiences with barns and fires and decide what risks are worth taking and where to draw the line.
For me, is materials that are as non-flammable as possible and have the least flammable as possible stored where horses may be stalled AND access to pens from the stalls for the horses as much as possible.
Been in two barn fires, that we stopped before the whole barn went up.
It was beyond scary, would have killed many horses and maybe people if either of those large, old wood structures had burned down.
[QUOTE=Loopy;7796535]
Barn fires scare the absolute crap out of me. I’ve been through it, scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. There wasn’t really much we could have done to prevent it happening, but I tell you what, I never want to put my horse in a wooden barn again. I’d have nightmares, no doubt about it.
I’ve got a metal fireproofed stable now.[/QUOTE]
What makes it fireproof? No wood use in construction or stalls? What is used instead of wood? Always willing to learn new things.
concrete blocks with a tin roof. But again, like you said GoodHors, it does depend on location, budget, how much room, etc.
The best things you can do to prevent fires are: checking your outlets and wires, remove cobwebs, do not use old box fans, sweep up (in the barn and up in the loft), keep dust to a minimum, hoses that are long and within reach should you need them, fire extinguishers, no smoking etc.
Sorry, goodhors, that time was in minutes, so a minute and 30 seconds. It was a four stall, older barn, went up like a pile of timber.
Great article!
- Barnmaster barn (not fire proof, but highly resistant). Concrete floors, stall mats.
- Hay and shavings stored in a separate building 75+ feet downwind (surprised no-one mentioned that)
- Professional electrical work, both installation and maintenance. Personally I feel a lot of the non-spontaneous fires (i.e. NOT the ones where the hay was damp) are likely caused by BO/BM jerryrigging something ‘just for now’ and never quite getting back to doing something properly. Changing lightbulbs, OK. Adding a light, no.
- Definitely can handle a firetruck (and our local fire department is <3 miles away), but the water is limited to what they can pull from the hose here.
I do have a hedge on the upwind side of the barn, mainly because I like the way it looks, but I have occasionally thought about pulling it out because we have smokers here and although they are careful if something isn’t stubbed out correctly it could end up in the mulch. I decided to compromise by putting one of those ‘butt catchers’ in a convenient location and encouraging people to use it.
What I DON’T have, although I am now going to look into it, is a smoke detector. My only concern with that is my neighbor has/had one and every time someone in the neighborhood was burning leaves it would go off. I also have one in the house that is quirky and will go off when we vacuum (dust?) Since we have a lot of young horses in training I foresee potential for a trainwreck if there are random alerts, but perhaps could put one in the tack room to start. Would love to hear from other folks who have one.
Also, for people who have an arena, do you have sprinklers?
What I have heard on the smoke detectors, is they collect dust (can’t avoid that at a barn) don’t work well. Might be unreliable if not checked often. Weekly, would be my suggestion, since dust builds up fast in barns. Not sure if blowing them out would work or be at all helpful.
Alarms going off might unsettle horses the first few times, but they are amazingly adaptable. We do odd, new, weird things, just to acclimate our horses to the fact that “stuff happens, didn’t hurt YOU” so they get over it, stand still quietly. They are TB crosses, so as sensitive as any other horses out there, no deadheads here! But they ACCEPT things, with practice, willing to give new, odd things a moment of time before to see if it is DOING anything to be spooky about or just noise. Even “touchy” horses need to get this kind of thinking going so they are easier to settle in new situations, like a show grounds. Easier on them mentally.
Cement barn here would be cold, though it is fireproof. Expensive too. Old, dry, small barn going up in 90 seconds is not unbelievable. Fires only give you a SMALL window of opportunity to save anything, IF you are there when fire starts.
Goodhors I’m looking into industrial smoke detectors when I get a minute. Presumably they’ve figured out how to deal with dust. Like you, we expose our horses to a lot of random things, but Spouse is a trainer so we get new horses in all the time. If I can find a detector that actual, well, DETECTS I think it would be worth the risk.
Re cement barn – I grew up in Michigan so I definitely know what kind of cold you are talking about! The Barnmaster walls are layers – hardipanel exterior, insulation sandwiched with plywood, metal inner wall. I don’t think they would be any colder than a typical wooden wall, and may be slightly warmer since there are VERY few gaps to allow drafts. Not the prettiest barn, but I like that it is fire resistant and definitely can be sanitized (important because we breed as well). I can also vouch for their ability to withstand very high winds!
[QUOTE=goodhors;7796724]
What makes it fireproof? No wood use in construction or stalls? What is used instead of wood? Always willing to learn new things.[/QUOTE]
Yeah,it’s constructed of metal on a metal frame. Cost an arm and a leg more than wood but I was adamant I wasn’t having timber built. Would possibly be too hot for many of you but it’s fine over here for me in the UK.
I have a raised center aisle Barnmaster Barn, and I live in Texas. No, it itsn’t hot, mine is insulated and well ventilated. Aside from the fire safety aspect, I love my barn as it is easy to clean (literally you can power wash it). It’s also “kick proof”, meaning that a horse can kick at the stall wall and not kick through it.
We took the advice of our barn contractor and had exterior doors installed on each of our stalls. Aside from the safety factor, it provides excellent ventillation in the summer months. The stall doors roll open and there is a stall grate door for each stall. When we’ve had horse on stall rest it’s been an added benefit since the horses can look out into the pasture and see their buddies… the next best thing to being turned out.
I would build another Barnmaster barn in a heartbeat. Our barn is nearly ten years old and we haven’t had any maintenance issues with it. It cost less than $40K to build a five stall barn with tack room including a concrete center aisle. Costs have gone up over the past ten years, but I feel it is a well built barn for the price. Also, being a metal frame barn, you can add onto the barn at minimal cost.
I went to a barn fire symposium years ago, and the one thing that stuck with me was that cobwebs are perfect fire conductors.
That article addresses some good points, most of which are not possible with me, but worthy of thought. No excuse not to have a fire extinguisher handy…
Not sure that our emergency responders would look up a file on us if they were called, to know to look for the lockbox, etc.
Would it make a difference to turn off the electricity when not in the barn? Throw the breaker? That could at least possibly stop electrical fires from starting…
[QUOTE=goodhors;7797394]
Cement barn here would be cold, though it is fireproof. Expensive too. [/QUOTE]
You might be surprised! I’m not in MI, but in the upper midwest generally, and I managed a large (20+ horses) training facility that was built with cinderblocks. Our horses were inside a lot in the winter, and it really wasn’t that bad. When the BO added more stalls, they put radiant heating under the new section and that actually heated the entire stall row significantly.
Our barn had dutch doors on all the stalls, and in the heat of summer it stayed really quite nice in there with the breezes. Another plus to the cinder construction was that wind was much, much less of a factor (and we get some WIND here!), which made it feel much warmer in the winter.
All that said, I’m appalled reading this list because I was hired to manage this large training facility (as in, full of 5- and 6-figure sporthorses who were owned by other people) and absolutely none of this information was given to me (and some they would have actively argued against). When I expressed concern about the state of our fire extinguishers I was laughed at. All I can hope is that they have since/will soon get smart about it before they have an actual barn fire.
Just remember most of what a Fire Extinguisher will do for you is clear a path to get out 1X. Even the large ones only last a very short time and if you’ve ever taken one of the Fire Extinguisher training classes at your work (some places offer them where you get to try to put out a small controlled fire with an extinguisher) you will find you barely get the thing put out with one unit and it’s likely to reignite.
Been through the fire thing, lost one horse the other was seriously injured. What would have helped the most is having a door directly to the outside from the stall AND having somewhere not connected to the barn to put the horses once out.
We were lucky in that the horses that got out mostly followed one gelding down to his field and they could be safely contained there. Another fire at a different farm a few years earlier had the released horses
a. going back into the burning building
b. running out onto the road and several were hit by cars
c. horses running around the yard where the fire trucks were trying to fight the fire
Once a fire gets going, if there is anything to burn, it will burn things you didn’t think would burn.
