Fires that consumed barns in Clifton, Va., and Fair Hill, Md., with devastating swiftness in the last week have taken the lives of 34 horses. Ten horses died at Little Full Cry Farm, a popular boarding stable in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Clifton on Oct. 26; some 24 race horses died in a fire at the Fair Hill Training Center on Nov. 2.
State fire marshals haven’t determined a cause for either blaze. Arson hasn’t been completely ruled out, but officials said they don’t consider arson a likely cause for either fire.
The fire at Little Full Cry Farm began about 2:40 a.m., when a neighbor spotted flames and called 911. The conflagration prevented the neighbor or firefighters from saving any of the horses inside the barn. The farm is owned by Randy Dillon, son of the highly respected riding instructor Jane Marshall Dillon. Mrs. Dillon moved her Junior Equitation School, which she founded in 1950, to Clifton in 1989. She died in 2000.
According to a report in the Fauquier Times-Democrat, a nearby eight-stall barn wasn\’t damaged in the fire.
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The Fair Hill fire began about 6:40 p.m. and burned the 14,000-square foot barn to the ground. According to the Cecil Whig, officials first estimated that 31 horses had been killed before confirming the number as 24. More than 100 firefighters from three states fought the fire for 90 minutes before bringing it under control.
The paper reported that the barn was equipped with neither fire alarms nor a sprinkler system, and that the Maryland fire code doesn’t require either in a barn.
Kathleen Anderson, president of the Fair Hill Condominium Association, which manages the property, told the Cecil Whig that they’d considered installing smoke detectors and alarm systems but decided not to install them. “We have been advised they don’t work with all the dust and dirt in the environment,” she said. “It’s a huge investment with very questionable liability. It’s not about the dollars; it’s about the fact it wouldn’t work.”
Jim McGreevy, a trainer at the adjacent Caldera Racing Stable, said that he’d investigated installing a sprinkler system in his barn, but he was told it wouldn’t work because of insufficient pressure since the water comes from a well.
