HASANVILLE – A noon-hour blaze has caused thousands of dollars of damage, shocking the community of Hasanville.
On May 23, the Madawaska Valley fire department was notified that a barn was on fire in Hasanville, a corporation of five to seven families perched on a farm in the hills off of Stanley Olsheskie Road.
Omar Adams, a resident of the community, said some of the younger children discovered the fire and ran back home to inform their parents.
When he went out to inspect the fire, the smaller of the two barns was fully engulfed in flames.
Adams said the community has never experienced a fire like this before.
“It’s shocking,” he said.
At around 12:10 p.m., both the Combermere and Barry’s Bay fire halls were dispatched to the scene. Although there was nothing that could be done to save the structure, fire crews managed to contain the fire from spreading to another larger barn nearby.
The structure was an old large barn, primarily used for storage. It took fire crews a total of three hours to extinguish the fire. Firefighters made sure that nearby fence polls and hay bails were also fully extinguished. The logs and steel roofing had to be removed to overhaul the building.
Adams said he is grateful that the fire didn’t spread to the brush or the nearby larger barn.
Fortunately, no one was injured in the incident. But Madawaska Valley Fire Chief Andrew Peplinski noted that five ewes and five lambs were secured in the stalls and all perished in the blaze.
There were also generators, chainsaws and other tools that were in the barn. Nothing was salvaged.
Adams said he does not know what caused the fire, but Fire Chief Peplinski said there was a possible burn barrel very near the old log barn that may have caused the blaze.
He noted that it was a very humid day with a slight wind, and there were multiple bails of hay inside the structure. A combination that, Peplinski said, could have caused spontaneous combustion.
Story continues in the May 30 issue of The Valley Gazette.