Safety calls intensify after another deadly barn fire
Arabian stallions were Doris and Rob Woolner’s lifelong work.
When fire ripped through their Mount Forest, Ont., barn Thursday night, they tried desperately to save the 13 horses they owned and boarded.
But only one got away as “the building was just fully involved,” said Dave Guil- bault, fire chief in Mount Forest, about 150 kilometres northwest of Toronto.
In the flames, the couple lost the animals they’d cared for over decades, along with “the next generation of champions”: foals born just this fall.
“The devastation is just — it’s 30 years of starting from babies,” said Doris’s sister, Elaine Gauthier, on the farmhouse stoop.
Wiping tears from behind her glasses, she pointed to the pasture behind her, where they had galloped. “The memories — my daughter’s 34 and . . . she recalls her aunt has always had horses, that’s how long, and they’ve always been Arabian stallions.”
Ten-year-old Alysa Gauthier, the Woolners’ great-niece, said, “I’ve been riding horses since I was born,” as she tearfully tucked her head against her grandmother’s chest. “Last night I woke up to my mom screaming my aunt’s name.”
The Woolners remained at home surrounded by family but “not ready” to speak to others about the tragedy, Gauthier said. When she saw flames Thursday night, neighbour Betty Murphy rushed across the road to help, but found Rob covered in black soot after his desperate attempt to save the horses.
“There was nothing (to do). Rob, I guess, did everything humanly possible and I know he would,” she said.
She stopped by the home Friday to drop off a home-cooked meal of chicken and mashed potatoes for the devastated family.
It’s the second deadly barn fire in the area in the past two weeks.
A blaze at Classy Lane Stables Training Centre in Puslinch on Jan. 4 killed 43 animals. “I’ve been in the firefighting service for 44 years and I’ve had barns with animals (catch fire), but to have two fires, very similar, with the loss of life of horses in two weeks, in less of a 45-minute drive (apart), it’s so tragic and so upsetting,” Guilbault told the Star.
The Arabian breed’s popularity has fallen off over the past three decades, according to Diana Macdonald, a longtime friend of the Woolners and fellow Arabian exhibitor.
“When our numbers are down, this is a significant hit. To lose one of our breeders with some top-quality show horses; this is a loss to the whole community.”
She said barn owners are always on high alert for fires, especially at this time of year.
“Barns are a unique situation,” she said, with farm wells too small to provide enough water to counter fast flames, and horses too fearful to flee.
“Even if you get them out, you may think you’ve just got them to the outskirts of the barn and they’ll run away, but no. They’ll turn around and run back in, because that’s where they’re safe. It’s home.”
Barns aren’t required to have sprinklers or smoke detectors. This structure apparently did not have either, said Wayne Romaine, the lead investigator with the Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal.
Investigators are examining electri- cal sources, including a tractor battery and lights and heaters in the barn, Romaine said, but it was too early Friday to speculate on a cause.
The fire marshal’s office does not collect data on animal injuries or deaths, though it does tally the number of annual barn fires. In 2014, 150 barn fires were recorded, 45 per cent of which housed animals. The numbers are similar over the previous two years, with 157 barn fires, 43 per cent housing animals, in 2013, and 136 fires, with 41 per cent housing animals, in 2012.
Allan Ehrlick is president of the Arabian Horse Association of East- ern Canada, which is holding its 60th annual general meeting Saturday in Brantford. Ehrlick said plans for fundraising to help the Woolners, longtime association supporters, will be discussed.
“We want to do this properly; we don’t want to do it out of emotion, we want to do it right,” said Ehrlick, who knows the Woolners well.
He said he’s received phone calls expressing sympathy for the Woolners’ loss from people in western Canada and California “because they feel it.”
In light of the two fires, the Ontario Equestrian Federation posted fire safety and prevention tips on its website Friday.
Equine Guelph, based at the University of Guelph, has offered fire prevention training for 12 years, but is ramping up its efforts in light of the recent fires, director Gayle Ecker said in an email.
Though these aren’t race horses, the fire marshal’s office requested assistance from Ontario Racing Commission investigators.
“We were asked to assist because of our equine knowledge,” said Ray Kahnert, ORC spokesperson.
He declined to provide any specifics while the fire marshal investigates.