Andrew Ferry and his wife had just finished dinner Friday night when his mother called, telling him to rush over to the family farm: A fire had broken out in the milk house.
“When we pulled on to the road in front, there were 60-foot flames in my grandfather’s barn,” said Ferry, 26, a third-generation farmer at the iconic dairy farm on Gifford Road.
Keith Bedford/Globe staff
On Sunday, the three red barns were reduced to piles of twisted aluminum sheets and charred wood beams.
By the time he arrived with his father, Michael Ferry, the fast-moving fire had spread to two larger barns.
On Sunday, the three red barns were reduced to piles of twisted aluminum sheets and charred wood beams. A burning odor mixed in the air with the more familiar smells of hay and manure. Smoke rose from a few hay bales that had caught on fire Sunday morning.
The only structure left standing was a small grain silo.
Ferry family members rushed to free their livestock from the burning barns. A few cows had to be corralled back the next morning.
Now, the Ferry family is trying to determine how to rebuild the old farm buildings, where countless memories stretch back to the 1930s.
“The old barn that my grandfather built, that was just like a family heirloom,” Andrew Ferry said from the farmhouse overlooking the rubble. “It’s just like a barn to some people, but for us it’s our home. When you look at that, that’s generations of my family gone.”
Two fire crews arrived at the farm Sunday afternoon to contain the small hay fire, the gray smoke thickening as the wind kicked up. The cows briefly stopped grazing to watch the crews work on the other side of the fence.
Investigators plan to return Monday to further inspect the cause of the fire, Andrew Ferry said. The family can only speculate as to what caused it. The state’s hazardous response team initially responded because of the presence of fertilizer in one of the burning barns.
Michael Ferry did not wish to comment Sunday on the future of the farm.
The farm is one of the oldest in Westport, founded by Manuel Ferry in the 1930s. He handbuilt the iconic red barns. His son, Michael, and Michael’s wife now run the farm, although Andrew Ferry owns the cows.
The family’s main business used to be dairy. They now sell hay and livestock corn and keep only about 20 cows.
Keith Bedford/Globe Staff
Louise Ferry Burke (right) grew up on the farm and now lives in a home across the street. “Yesterday, I was talking to my sister,” Burke said. “She said, ‘You remember what Pa used to say? You put that day behind you and you go ahead and keep going.’ ”
“This town used to be full of dairy farms, and now it’s just three,” said Andrew Ferry, who runs the Pine Hill Dairy farm just down the road. “Even though it was a really strong farming community, this is one of the farms that hasn’t gone away.”
The fire marked the second time tragedy struck the Ferry farm.
The two largest barns had to be rebuilt after their roofs collapsed from heavy snow in the winter of 2014.
Family members are sure they will rebuild them once again, although they say it’s too soon to tell what they will look like. Right now, they are concerned with removing the mounds of steel and debris.
Michael Ferry Jr., one of Michael’s sons, said there is no point in rebuilding the oldest barn, the first to catch fire.
“That’s 1930s farm stuff,” he said. “To rebuild something like that now is not really practical.”
The brothers spent much of Sunday quietly trying to come to grips with the loss of barns that once stood tall on the pasture below their family’s home.
“We used to hang out all the time there as little kids,” Andrew Ferry said. “You have to do something. You can’t just leave it like that.”
His aunt, Louise Ferry Burke, now 78, also grew up on the farm. She now lives in a home across from the farm where she collected hay as a child.
“Yesterday, I was talking to my sister,” Burke said. “She said, ‘You remember what Pa used to say? You put that day behind you and you go ahead and keep going.’ ”
Keith Bedford/Globe Staff
Two fire crews arrived at the farm Sunday afternoon to contain a small hay fire that burned after Friday’s initial blaze.
Source: The Boston Globe
