New details are emerging about a fire that broke out at a dairy farm in Longswamp Township, Berks County.
The dairy farm barn unfortunately was a total loss, but the positive was that the 42 cows inside the barn all managed to get out safely.
1 cow sadly died of stress in transport to another farm along Topton Road, according to officials. The state police fire marshal was on scene earlier Monday morning to pinpoint the cause of the fire.
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State Police Fire Marshal Janssen Herb is ruling a Sunday evening Longswamp Township barn fire accidental.
He says it started due to electrical activity.
“The fire does appear at this point to start on the roof, an open void space area of the roof of what we’re calling the milk house. That is a small building that’s somewhat attached to the main barn,” said Herb.
He says it can be difficult to get in and pinpoint the exact location of the start of a fire, but due to the fire department’s quick actions in putting the fire out it made his job much easier..
“The evidence that was left as a result of the fire, that the patterns and all that kind of things that we look for really displayed a significant amount of evidence to indicate that the fire definitely starts in this building here and keep in mind it’s important that that building did not collapse,” Herb noted.
The Topton Fire Company Chief was back on scene Monday morning to work hand in hand with Herb.
He was greeted with a busy visual of friends and family chipping in to help.
“The farming communities here to support this family. This will probably be cleaned up this afternoon and it’ll be back building in no time,” said the Chief.
The dairy farm is a total loss.
Damages were estimated at $150,000, police said.
Robinson says once a fire starts in a building like a barn structure- it can be hard to fight.
“You have hay in the barn you have dry bedding materials in a barn typically, any type of small fire becomes a very large fire pretty quickly,” he said.
He says the quick response by tankers and crews on the grounds helped knock the aggressive flames out, and get all cattle to safety.
People have been pitching in to help rebuild as quickly as possibly. There’s plans to have a wedding here in roughly two weeks, and those plans aren’t changing.
Source: wfmz.com
