Latest News

Food Animal Matters – Fire

December 11, 2024

Barn and range fires can have devastating impacts and consequences. In a document intended for first responders, the Ontario Farm Animal Council succinctly presented the difficulties in dealing with barn fires, “Barn fires are one of the more challenging structure fires for first responders. Barns are highly flammable buildings that are often filled with highly combustible items. These structures go up quickly and burn fast. The vast majority of barn fires occur late at night or in the early morning hours, often going undetected until flames are showing. Due to the locations of barns, by the time the fire department arrives, the barn is quite often fully involved.”

The first priority in barn or range fires is to assure the safety of people, but that does not mitigate the emotional and economic damage caused by the loss of animals nor the impact on the farm family’s livelihood. The animals and farm structures often reflect a lifetime of work.

Dealing with farmed animals in fires is challenging, as their natural behaviors can make evacuation very difficult and often impossible to complete safely. Treating farmed animals that have suffered smoke inhalation and burns is also difficult especially in the absence of specialized medical facilities.

In this column, 2 veterinarians share their experiences dealing with fires and the aftermath. Dr. Christie McLeod describes the fire that engulfed her family’s dairy farm. Dr. Klea-Ann Wasilow describes her experiences and offers advice from her learning following grassland fires that devastated her clients’ herds. It is clear that these were difficult situations to relive by writing about them and I express FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY Fire sincere gratitude to both Dr. McLeod and Dr. Wasilow for being so generous in describing their experiences.

A future column will address preparedness for fires.

Gillette Farm fire, Christie McLeod, DVM

November 22, 1994, is a date etched into my memory. I had been in mixed animal practice for 9 y with a focus on dairy production medicine.

At 2 AM, an employee woke my husband and me to tell us that the family milking barn was on fire. Gillette Farms was no stranger to barn fires. During the previous 20 y they had lost 2 barns to fire; one electrical and the other to a lightning strike. Both happened when the cattle were on pasture, so few animals were lost.

The 1994 fire was devastating and horrific. Being a mild night with a good breeze, the barn’s windows and side walls were all open. The barn was T-shaped. The top of the T was a tie stall-barn with box stalls, calving stalls, and pens for newborn calves. My father-in-law had a focused goal to build a purebred Holstein herd that would genetically elevate the breed. Those cows were housed in the tie-stall area. The arm of the T was an attached free-stall barn with a large outside exercise area where our cows would go out for daily exercise.

As with most emergencies everyone jumped into action. As soon as we arrived at the barn, my husband ran to the free-stall to open the doors to the exercise yard to let his cows out. He burned his hands opening the doors only to face dead cows piled on top of each other at the entrance blocking any hope of rescue. All but one cow in the free-stall died that night. She escaped the free-stall through a door connecting to the tie-stall barn. By the time we reached the free-stall barn, most of the cows were already dead from smoke inhalation, but there were others literally on fire due to the ceiling raining fire down on them. It was utterly horrifying, unforgettable, and haunting.

We lost about 215 cows that night. Anyone who works with cows knows they have personalities and are very social creatures. You can’t help but develop relationships with them. My husband and I had recently nursed and cared for one cow that had a deep foot wound from a gutter scraper chain injury. We had just returned her to the barn the day before only to have her die in the fire. After the fire, my husband said that at least when they were removing all the carcasses, he could not identify any of his cows because they had burned so badly. Emotionally the loss of so much of the herd was traumatic to everyone.

We experienced first-hand the behavior of cattle during a fire. Before the fire department arrived, we had untied the elite cows and first and second-calf heifers in the tie-stall section. Even after they were untied, the cattle didn’t want to go outside but kept circling inside the barn. Desperate to get them out we used a tractor to create a large opening in the barn wall to let them outside. Due to the heavy smoke and the cows’ herd behavior, we were only able to get 29 animals out of the tie-stall barn and into a fenced pasture. Newborn calves were being lifted and hauled out the open sidewall. At this point only 3 elite cows (Chrissy, Ruby, and Christiane) were still alive in the box stalls. They were bawling and jumping at the partitions. All the other cows in box stalls were already dead from smoke inhalation including 8 of the untied first calf heifers that had crowded into a corner when we were trying to get them outside.

Once the firefighters arrived, no one was permitted to go into the barn. We could see the 3 surviving cows trapped in their box stalls. As I have witnessed so many times, farmers are so resourceful. My brothers-in-law got hooks with attached chains on the closest box stall and pulled the pen wall down. There were 2 cows in that stall; Chrissy had jumped over the dividing wall to be with Ruby. They were able to lead Ruby out by getting a hook onto her neck collar. Chrissy followed her.

At about 4 AM, the ceiling and all the contents of the mow collapsed. My brother-in-law was devastated as he saw Christiane, a valuable 3-year-old, disappear. We got Ruby and Chrissy into a drive shed where they refused feed and water. They were both tachypneic and Chrissy had second degree focal burns on her udder. I asked the firefighters if I could have an oxygen tank to treat them because I suspected carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. There was an amazing response from the cows. They brightened up immediately and started to eat and drink. The effect lasted a few hours and then periodically we would administer more oxygen via nasal tube. Sometime during the night, I was asked to help calve a first calf heifer rescued from the tie-stall barn. She needed an episiotomy but produced a live heifer calf.

At 7 AM, a firefighter came to get me because they had found a cow alive in the rubble of the tie-stall barn. I figured I would be euthanizing her. We stood looking down on the miracle cow Gillette Blackstar Christiane. We were standing on the top of the collapsed roof, and she was standing above the box stall walls that contained 2 dead cows and the soaked straw from the mow. My brother-in-law, Louis, climbed down to her immediately, hugged her and sobbed.

I called my friend and colleague Dr. Rob Tremblay for advice on a treatment plan for these cows. That is when we discovered that there was very little published literature about barn fire survivors as most are euthanized. Christiane had multiple focal, round burns along her topline, but was remarkably stable. Her survival had to be a freak of the air currents within the barn and the fact that she jumped into another box stall when the roof collapsed. She was 5 mo incalf but our primary goal was to try and save her. I gave her a high dose of dexamethasone expecting that she would likely abort. With innovation the firefighters and the family got her out of the ruins; we moved her to be with the other 2 cows.

Over the next few weeks, we provided supportive care to the 3 most severely affected cows. We had an exchange student, Justin Blake, from Ireland, who became the invaluable night shift caregiver. When the cows would stop eating and become tachypneic we would provide oxygen again using a nasal tube. We used silver sulfadiazine ointment on the skin burns for ,1 wk. After ,5 d, all 3 cows started to cough up red-colored mucoid material. For the next 2 wk they continued to intermittently go off feed and look depressed and cough up serosanguinous, spongy looking phlegm. At the time I was not optimistic since the cows during these episodes looked very depressed and dyspneic. We continued to provide supplemental oxygen as needed. All the cows responded to this and would brighten up and return to feed. Rob and I decided that they were likely sloughing their respiratory tract lining from heat and smoke damage. We monitored them for secondary bacterial infections but only Ruby was treated with oxytetracycline for 5 d.

To be viable as dairy cows they needed to be able to survive on their own with a functioning respiratory system. After ,3 wk of periodic intermittent oxygen, Rob and I decided to wean them off supplemental oxygen. We were pleased to see that they all continued to thrive. Chrissy’s udder burns were teat deforming. We dried her off and she became an embryo donor. She lived out the rest of her life on the farm. After 10 d, Ruby who was ,170 d in milk was milking ,32 kg/day. Christiane carried her calf to term and produced Renaissance Triumphant who became a bull test sire. In 2000, Christiane was named “Cow of the Year” by Holstein Canada.

Only 32 of our cows survived the fire. Four of them suffered burns on their udders from ignited bedding and were shipped for slaughter. The remainder were moved into a nearby older tie-stall barn that we purchased. Pregnant heifers that had been rescued were already starting to calve and other milking barns needed to be located to house them. We also had to find feed for the winter since our 4 silos and their contents were either destroyed or needed repair due to fire damage.

Everyone worked hard to create solutions to move ahead. The emotional toll was huge and traumatic. The financial loss and stress were also enormous. The young genetic stock had survived and became the future milking herd. Over the next 2 y the farm was rebuilt with 2 separate milking barns. Never again would all the animals be housed together. I learned once again that cows are individual resilient animals and, with supportive care they were able to overcome heat and smoke damage.

Prairie fire experiences from a mixed animal veterinary perspective.
Klea-Ann Wasilow, DVM

There are crucial moments in our careers that alter who we are and how we approach our work. For me, one came in October 2017.

I was provided an opportunity to support ranchers affected by a prairie wildfire in southwestern Saskatchewan. The fire had been large-scale, driven by high winds and resulting in tremendous loss. I have rarely faced a tragedy on this scale in my career and it took me many months to understand the effects it had on everyone involved.

The experience made me appreciate the value we provide supporting those we serve. In situations such as these, communities will rapidly act, offer to help, and get involved. Ideas will surface regarding what needs to be done. When something comes up that you can do, volunteer and make it happen. No one person can provide all the support or answers; simply focus on where you are most able to help. Don’t worry about what you can’t help with or solve.

Use your network to reach out to the veterinary industry, veterinary medical associations, all levels of government, and product and pharmaceutical supply companies.

Remember to document everything you do as much as possible. Collect contact information. Keep good records (photographic and written) throughout the event. Take time to collect and organize information early on so when your clients need them for insurance or support programs, the information is ready. In mass events, catalogue losses (make lists, take photos, record locations of affected areas, livestock locations and losses using resources such as Google Maps).

Provide veterinary care wherever possible. Ranchers and farmers will rush to provide aid, and their first priority will be to minimize animal suffering; help where you can. When the dust settles, if there are surviving animals, offer to assess them frequently and adjust care plans quickly. Once you identify the primary problems, prevention is the best option on a mass scale. In our experience with wildfires, airway, hoof, skin, and udder damage caused infection, pain, lameness, and loss of ability to eat/drink or nurse. We did our best to manage these as we moved forward.

Stay connected. Check in often, phone, text, or plan to stop by when it works for people. Reassess and help wherever possible. Let them know you have documented things, so if information is needed, you have notes available. When the community comes together to fundraise or rally around affected individuals, attend if you are able.

Agriculture communities and cattle producers are fueled by support, kindness, and action. As veterinarians we are privileged to work alongside them.

–Robert Tremblay