Peter Aalbers had just finishing moving cows from one barn to another Thursday afternoon and went to work in his yard.
Moments later he looked back and saw the first barn, abutting his Blind Line Road homestead, was on fire. There was nothing he could do to save the dairy cows inside the first of two barns at the Kam Valley Farm.
“We ran to the barn and opened up the doors, but it was a fireball from the front to the back and we couldn’t get anything out. One-hundred-and-twenty cows are burned alive and eight calves,” a shaken Aalbers said, two hours after the noon-hour blaze began.
“And all of the equipment is gone. Everything is gone.”
The herd of red Holsteins is believed to be one of the largest in Canada.
Aalbers and his wife Rensje have been farming in the Oliver-Paipoonge countryside for 30 years and said he’ll have to start all over again.
“But it’s what we have to do, to move on and build again,” Aalbers said, at a loss to explain the blaze. “I have no idea because we were not in the facility. We were working in the yard.
“If we’d been in the barn, then we could have seen where it started. But we were outside and everything was full of smoke already. So we have no clue where it started. It all went so fast.”
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Luckily no one was hurt in the fire, which drew fire crews from Oliver-Paipoonge, Neebing and the City of Thunder Bay.
“We couldn’t have even tried to get into the barn, and if we’d tried, then we’d have been gone too,” he said.
Thick black smoke could be seen billowing over the rural countryside for miles, the flames eating away at the structure, leaving nothing more but a skeleton frame still standing, as fire crews tore through the aluminum siding to get water on the fire. The flames curdled the siding on the house, but Rensje Aalbers got out safely.
Peter Aalbers said insurance will likely cover their loss, though it doesn’t make it any less devastating.
“I feel sad about the animals, that’s the worst of it. But I think most of them suffocated from the smoke inhalation and died on the spot,” he said.
Son-in-law Jason Reid said the good thing is material things can be replaced and he was thankful no one was hurt.
“Obviously it’s a 100 per cent loss to their income and their livelihood right now, and they’re very upset about the loss and pretty shook up right now. It came on pretty quick this morning. They were milking cows and 10 minutes before the fire they had been walking through the barn, checking on things and making sure everything was going all right.”
Oliver-Paipoonge fire chief Mike Horan was on scene, but unavailable for comment.
