A massive barn fire in the Goulds area of St. John’s killed about a hundred cows that were housed inside Monday night.
Platoon chief Ken Dinn of the St. John’s Regional Fire Department (SJRFD) told the Telegram that a passerby on Back Line in Goulds reported the blaze at Woodland Farm at 8:55 p.m. and when firefighters from the Mount Pearl station arrived on scene at 9:02 p.m., the barn was already engulfed in flames.
Dinn said the barn held about 120 cows but only about 20 to 25 of them had been rescued from the fire. Several people including the owners of the farm, family members and neighbours could be seen rescuing some adult cows and calves from the burning buildings, some of them covered in soot. The animals were corralled in an area away from the blaze until they could be loaded onto a number of trailers and taken from the scene.
Firefighters in the meantime, from the SJRFD and Goulds volunteers, tackled the massive fire but with some difficulty as there was no local water supply. Water had to be brought in by tanker and that hampered the firefighting effort.
Dinn said the building was a total loss and their main concern was protecting the nearby home which was exposed to the flames.
They expected to be on scene for several hours in an effort to completely extinguish the fire.
Another fire on the same property in November of 2020 destroyed a large garage next to the barns that were destroyed Monday night.
More details will be provided as they become available.
Source: saltwire.com
