[Plumcreek]

Lightning hit a barn in Wisconsin yesterday, resulting in a fire that killed 13 or 18 horses. The owners are among the nicest and best trainers in the QH horse show scene, loved their horses, and their horses always looked it at the shows.
http://www.gohorseshow.com/article/O...arn_Fire/37655

I do not know if this barn had outside stall doors, but PLEASE plan them into your new barns, even if you never, never plan to have outside runs.

As a barn designer, I would walk from a job where the owner would not allow outside doors wherever possible. And we minimize stall locations that do not have an outside wall for a door.

[hundredacres]

I'm sorry for the owners....what a terrible loss.

Thanks for posting this. I've been trying to get my husband to add outside doors to my barn for years. I never realized that this has a safety factor - now I will not ask him, but tell him .

[goodhors]

It doesn't matter if you have outside doors, the horses won't leave the barn unless led out. This fact from fire fighting experts, people who train firemen on how to deal with horses in flaming barns.

Drive NJ has the ONLY horse I ever heard of who left a burning barn of his own volition, by jumping out the stall window!! And he waited until the barn was almost collapsing, because he was very badly burned across his back and rump.

The training clinic for first responders, fire persons, that I attended, said they had NOT EVER had a horse leave his stall by that outside door standing WIDE OPEN. Had to go get the horse looking outside and lead it out of the burning barns, lock it up in a paddock to prevent horses running back inside! The clinicians had over 25 years experience each, in fire fighting, including barn and stable fires. They OWNED horses themselves, so they were very experienced with horses in fire situations, gave us an EXCELLENT clinic from the fire person side. They explained to us horse people what to expect from our animals, how much REAL time you have to deal with such a situation before it is too dangerous to try saving them. How dangerous some animals get in fires, can't save them. The trick locks, latches, may not be familiar to these fire folks, who CAN NOT work them in their insulated gloves. NOT allowed to remove a glove, EVER, in fire situations. So that horse will die too.

Heat is the big danger, it will burn your lungs, horse lungs, so you die even if you do get back outside. Your time from finding the fire is MINUTES only, to do anything to save animals.

Best idea is to have a Fire Plan, and everyone knows what it is. This included naked aisles, no blocked exits EVER. Horses have fire ropes on doors, to get them out fast. Practice doing this exit plan, having a location to put those horses securely into, AWAY from the fire and working fire folks.

Many other great ideas to prevent fires, storage of flammable material, signs for strangers trying to help you, like FIRE PADDOCK on gates. Having WORKING fire extinguishers at EVERY ENTRANCE, of a size that is big enough to do some good. Some of this stuff is a CONSTANT checking of things to see that they "stay clean, fire extinguishers charged up" all the time. Safety is WORK, takes time and effort, constant vigilance, check up lists to not miss anything each check.

Then they related the stories of expensive barns, which had all kinds of sprinkler systems, fire extinguishers, but they didn't work when needed. No one "was responsible" for that regular checking. Sprinklers had the water turned off for various reasons. Extinguishers had no charge, because no one ever looked at the gauges. Cement barn burned the contents and roof away. Walls held.

I am not adding outside doors, the stalls are on inside walls. We will just have to keep working on keeping things clean and safe with attention to the details, on a regular basis. I can make a halter to lead out of our fire ropes in 3 seconds, lots faster than I can halter a horse. Mine know how to lead with the fire rope, WILL lead as fast as I can run, so they can go into the secured paddock.

What have YOU done about fire safety planning, besides adding outside doors the horses won't use?

[Plumcreek]

Good post, goodhors, can not dispute your info. It is just that outside stall doors give you a chance to get to the horse. Maybe a small chance, but a chance that you may not have if you can't get inside a burning barn by the aisle, and I have heard of owners being held down to prevent them from trying.

Your post made me think of Kiwi latches - they may work with firemans glooves for outside stall doors.

I do have fire extinguishers and outside doors. Maybe I will keep some ropes hanging on the corrals - good idea. We have terrible lightening here, and I hope the tall trees around my barn would be the ones to get hit. Luckily indoor round pen is taller than the barn alongside.

The referenced barn fire was caused by lightening striking the barn. Hard to set up precautions for that, besides lightening rods.

[silvia]

Can I ask a stupid question? Why do we always hear about massive barn fires in America? It's quite rare here in Australia. I'm wondering what the difference is!

[bludejavu]

We have now owned and/or built 4 horse barns and all but one have had exterior doors exactly for the reason you state. The one that does not have exterior doors is a nice barn, but if I had to do it over again, it would also have exterior doors. We have had a fire in our barn, contained with some effort from my husband and the fire department, but it was our wake up call and one I will never forget. It was electrical in nature and if it had not been for one horse kicking the absolutely crap out of his stall wall, while the other 7 or so remained quiet, the whole barn would have burned.

[Western]

How do you make the halter out of the rope in 3 secs?

[Zu Zu]

~ Thoughts and prayres and hugs for everyone involved in this tragedy ~

[Halt Near X]

How do you make the halter out of the rope in 3 secs?

Hold one end of the rope in your hand, pass the other one under the horse's throatlatch and up over the poll towards you, then take that same end under the nose away from you then back up and over towards you. Then hold both ends of the rope in the same hand.

It makes a sort of figure eight -- secure enough to lead a horse in an emergency, no knots to tie or untie.

[Western]

Thanks, Happy Vagrant!

[KPF]

That's awful.

I do have dutch doors going to the outside, but more importantly, we installed lightning rods on our barn. We're out in the middle of a huge field and the barn is on a knoll. I worry a whole lot less about thunderstorms now that we have the rods. Hope I never have to find out if they work!

[BaroquePony]

You can tie a rope around the neck of a horse, or have a nice slip-over-the-head loop that has already been spliced, then take your long end and slide it through the loop that is around the neck, pull out a large loop and slide that over the horse's nose and snug it up using the long end that should still be hanging down, and you have a halter and lead rope all-in-one.

That is one way.

[Western]

Ok, thanks!

[Plumcreek]

Can I ask a stupid question? Why do we always hear about massive barn fires in America? It's quite rare here in Australia. I'm wondering what the difference is!

Many reasons: Much of the country has cold winters with barns built for closed in warmth. Old wooden farm barns turned into horse barns with questionable wiring not redone. Many show barns where horses are closed in to keep hair coats short and shiny. Newbie owners buying the sinking tank water heaters that horses drag out and play with in their hay pile. Lightening and brush fires.

[horsefaerie]

Leather broodmare collars are good for this and can be left on.

Outside doors SHOULD work if you have "fire drills" to teach the horse that going out the back door will sometimes be requested. It should be that simple. Horses want to go out the way they normally do so you would need to practice both exits.

[silvia]

Many reasons: Much of the country has cold winters with barns built for closed in warmth. Old wooden farm barns turned into horse barns with questionable wiring not redone. Many show barns where horses are closed in to keep hair coats short and shiny. Newbie owners buying the sinking tank water heaters that horses drag out and play with in their hay pile. Lightening and brush fires.

You make your barns out of wood???

[Plumcreek]

You make your barns out of wood???

I am assuming you mean new barns, and yes, that is still the least expensive material - wooden posts in the ground, wooden framing, and sheet metal exterior. Still can burn. Many older farm barns are all wood, and many in Colorado are all wood due to nice rustic looks and innexpensive rough sawn siding boards available here. Concrete block barns are not warm in the winter, and seldom used in the northern half of the country, unless double walled, which is pretty expensive. Structural steel framing is used for indoor arenas, but relatively a small percentage of barns. More barns are being made out of steel tube framing and tilt up steel or composite panels, (Barnmaster, MD) but post framing is still favored for larger two story or hay loft barns around my area. I do design hay loft barns in suburban areas where the allowable square footage for accessory buildings is restricted.

[Bluey]

I rather save money on other features than use materials or configurations that are a fire risk.

Absolutely have more than one exit, for horses and humans that may be in there when a fire breaks and can't make it to the aisle doors.

Having been in two barn fires, that luckily both were put out before the whole barn went up in flames, I can say that is beyond scary.

Old barns, well, people really had to do what they could and many didn't know any better.

Today? No excuse not to do the best we know how.
Having barns with many accesses just makes good sense.
Stall doors to the ouside, even if a horse may not go out in a fire by itself, at least it gives humans access to the horse for maybe a few more important seconds to get as many out as they can.

[hundredacres]

I think having an extra stall door as an alternate exit is the idea. Not that the horses will exit on their own. It's safer for HUMANS to open the stall door from the outside of a burning building than go into the aisle to lead them through. This is my feeling. An outside door would serve as a fire exit.

[JB]

My horses come into their stalls from the outside, and go back out the same way. The use the interior doors when I bring them into the aisle to groom/tack up/do feet/etc.

I also sometimes go in/out the front barn entrance.

Mine would have no problem being told to go out the exterior doors, thankfully, and thankfully I can do so without them escaping into "the wild" since my barn is within perimeter fencing.