3-alarm fire destroys steel barn
TOWNSEND » For the second day in a row, an early morning fire caused a building that’s part of a long-standing town institution to suffer serious damage.
A steel barn on the Dew-More Farms property on 73 Turnpike Road caught fire early Tuesday morning. This comes almost 24 hours after the rectory of
St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church suffered a four-alarm fire early Monday morning.
According to Charlie Rossbach, co-owner of the property, someone driving by the location at around 1:30 a.m. saw the fire and called 911.
“I was called about 15 minutes later,” he added. “By the time I got there, the fiberglass windows on the barn had melted from the fire.”
Townsend Fire Chief Mark Boynton said officials from Pepperell, Ashby, Brookline, Fitchburg and even Mason, N.H., were called to assist local fire fighters. Boynton said it took officials “a couple of hours” to put out the fire and no firefighters were hurt from the efforts.
“The building itself is a total loss,” he added. “The structure itself is all bent and warped and the building commissioner will likely say the building has to be torn down.”
The barn, according to Rossbach, has been on the property for about 40 years. It was used to store two tractors and all of his tools, none of which Rossbach said are salvageable after the fire was extinguished.
While he said he has backup tractors, Rossbach added he now needs new tools for work. Thankfully, no animals were in the barn during the fire and no one was injured from the blaze.
Boynton said the cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
Dew-More has been in Townsend since 1938. Originally a dairy farm, Dew-More sold their milking herd and changed their operations in 2010. Since then, the farm has managed beef cows and has been growing corn and hay.