About 175 cows and calves were in the dairy barn at Giroux Family Farm when fire broke out Tuesday evening.
“Black smoke was so bad, we only got seven or eight cows out before the fire trucks showed up,” said Scott Goldfarb, who lives up the road and rushed to help.
“It was heartbreaking.”
He had thought, at first, that the thick smoke rising from the direction of the farm at 6333 Route 22 was a brushfire.
That was just before 7:30 p.m., about the time passer-by Mark Lamberton spotted the fire and pounded on doors at the farmhouse, trying to raise the alarm.
But Joe and Carolyn Giroux were at the Clinton County Fair in Morrisonville, unaware of the unfolding disaster.
TANKER TASK FORCE
Clinton County Dispatch called out Beekmantown Volunteer Fire Department at about 7:30 and also a tanker task force of departments from Altona, Chazy, West Chazy, Cumberland Head and Morrisonville.
Town of Plattsburgh District 3 was requested to respond with a fill tanker.
Departments from Alburgh, Vt.; Lacolle, Quebec; Hemmingford, Quebec; Peru, Cadyville, Saranac, Champlain, Mooers and South Plattsburgh were also requested for mutual aid.
An inflatable pond was set up, a firefighter reported via radio.
COLLAPSE
As flames flared from the upper level of the white barn, a frantic effort went on below to evacuate the cows.
Some, perhaps 40, were set loose in a back field.
Using bottled water, men were trying to rinse other bovines made almost black from soot and smoke.
A 61-year-old man who’d been part of the rescue effort was taken to the hospital with smoke inhalation, according to a report on the scanner.
At about 8:20 p.m., much of the massive barn collapsed, flames still roaring, even as two men urged a calf across a barnyard streaming with water from many hoses.
Joe Giroux couldn’t yet talk about the loss of cows, calves, the barn, except to correct an earlier estimate that had about 80 animals in the structure.
“We’ll know more in the morning,” he said.
Joe, well-known to many for his years serving on the Clinton County Legislature and also Clinton County treasurer, and Carolyn own the farm with their son Todd.
RESCUED CALF
Against the odds, two cows escaped the structure on their own at about 8:45 p.m., followed by a third a few minutes later.
Confused, they tried to get back inside, so people blocked their way with farm equipment.
And firefighters armed with flashlights entered the structure, trying to save other animals.
Others kept the water coming, fighting flames still eating away at the middle section of the barn.
Suddenly, firefighters dragged a calf out; it lay quietly on the pavement, nose pointed away from the activity around its former home.
NICEST PEOPLE
At about 9:15 p.m., heavy equipment went to work tearing down the back of the dairy barn.
Firefighters kept water spraying on the rest of the ruined structure from a ladder truck and from hoses on the ground.
Night had fallen, and the long arm of an excavator gleamed yellow in the glow of spotlights, rising smoke a screen against a sky still holding a cast of blue.
A silo adjacent to the burned barn stood untouched by flames.
One tanker after another rolled up, delivering more water.
Goldfarb watched the Girouxs’ livelihood going up in smoke.
“They’re the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and they would give you the shirt off their back,” he said.
Source: Press Republican
