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November 23, 2008

Coopersville barn lost

Massive blaze seen for miles; hay destroyed, but horses safe

By DAN HEATH and SUZANNE MOORE

COOPERSVILLE — Flames devoured 4,000 bales of hay, another 1,000 of straw and farm equipment in a barn fire that lit the sky for miles Sunday afternoon.

Only timing prevented three horses from dying in the blaze.

"We were on our way to put them in (the barn)," said Elizabeth Goslow, daughter-in-law of Jeff and Johanne Goslow, who own the farm.

Elizabeth and her husband, Tom, could see the flames from Stetson Road as they headed out for his parents' place, but they didn't realize the fire was there until they got closer.

WIND HAMPERED EFFORTS
No one was home when the first spark ignited, but Jeff pulled into the driveway and around the back of the barn soon afterward.

"I emptied the fire extinguisher on it, but the wind was blowing," he said, watching firefighters at work around the wrecked structure at 44 Mason Road in the Town of Champlain hamlet of Coopersville.

The roof had fallen in, but gusts of wind gave intermittent view of the still standing silo.

"We were in there, started to get some stuff out," Jeff said, listing a mowing machine and tedder. "But the smoke was terrible."

He could still feel it in his throat.

He was able to back a truck up to a disc mower, and a neighbor, Mike LaValley, hitched it to the vehicle. He said they may have pulled it through part of a wall, but they got the $20,000 piece of equipment out.

Some of his new tractors were outside when the fire started.

Numerous fire companies fought the blaze, running a relay water line along Mason Road, across Route 9B and down Bechard Road to a dry hydrant on the Great Chazy River. Tankers also loaded water from a dry hydrant near the intersection of Route 9B and Stetson Road.

Champlain Fire Chief Chris Trombley said they had a great water supply.

"We never lost water pressure. The dry hydrants worked very well."

A truck was called in to spread sand on Mason Road and Route 9B to melt the ice that formed where water was pumped.

Champlain firefighters received mutual-aid assistance from the Rouses Point, Mooers, Chazy, Rescue Hose 5 and West Chazy fire departments in Clinton County. Crews from Alburg, Vt., and Hemmingford, Lacolle and St. Paul departments in Quebec also provided mutual aid. Firefighters from the Ellenburg Depot Fire Department were on standby at the Champlain station, and a crew from the Isle La Motte Department was on standby in Rouses Point.

Southbound traffic was turned around on Route 9B at Mason Road, while northbound traffic was turned around at the intersection of 9B and Lake Shore Road.

At 9:30 p.m. Route 9B in Coopersville remained closed.

Trombley said he expected his crew to be at the fire through the night and said an excavator would be brought in to move debris so firefighters could attack hot spots.

HORSES SAFE
First witnesses of the fire were perhaps Tom and Elizabeth's horses in the nearby pasture; the flames sent them running wildly.

Neighbor Ron Cotto was watching football when he happened to glance out the bay window that overlooks the field.

"I saw smoke, figured (the Goslows) were burning leaves," he said.

Then he spotted the flames.

"I grabbed some rope."

He and his wife, Heather, rushed to catch the horses before they injured themselves. Tom and Elizabeth got there soon after and led the excited mares through cornfields to reach a neighbor's barn, almost without incident.

"Ellie kicked Tom in the chest," Elizabeth said, trying to calm the 2-year-old Quarter Horse in its temporary stall and watching smoke and flames billow from the burning structure.

It appeared to her the firefighters were controlling the flames rather than trying to extinguish them entirely.

"(The) thing I say when a fire's that big," she said, "(is) let it burn.

"Less to clean up."

some HOMES threatened
Roger Proulx, 79, had a ringside seat for the fire — through a window in his home next door to the Goslows's — one of three homes threatened early on. He is Johanne's father and farmed the place for many years before passing it along to them. Proulx's parents had bought the farm when he was 14 years old.

"We used to have a lot of fun out there (in the barn)," neighbor and childhood friend Chudleigh Fosher reminded Proulx.

"I put a lot of hay up there," Proulx said, badly shaken by the blaze. "Milked a lot of cows.

"It's a good thing the wind wasn't that way," he added, gesturing westward.

The firefighters felt the same. Trombley said they used foam and water to protect Goslow's, Proulx's and Ken Lord's homes from the flames.

"There were some very tense moments. If the wind had been from a different direction, it would've been a lot different," Trombley said. "Because of the size of the fire and that it moved so quickly, we couldn't do anything for the barn at first."

Lord was in his yard watching firefighters attack the blaze. The heat of the fire melted siding on the back of his home.

"It was a good thing the wind was in that direction (out of the west). I've often wondered what would happen if one of these buildings caught fire," he said.

Chris Bleaux was standing next to a storage barn he uses to store cars. It is just northwest of the destroyed barn.

As he arrived, smoke was showing, but the barn was still intact. Then the east end was fully engulfed.

"It just erupted. I was amazed at the intensity of the flames," Bleaux said. "Ten minutes later it was down. The roof just caved in."

WILL LIKELY REBUILD
A math teacher at Northern Adirondack Central School, Jeff Goslow raises hay and straw as a sideline, selling it to local customers and to people far away as well. He'd just moved out the hay in half the barn and was expecting a tractor-trailer from Massachusetts Sunday evening for some of the rest.

"A lot of customers depend on me. This is a bad time of year to lose all that hay," he said. "I'm just glad nobody was hurt and my neighbors didn't lose their houses."

He said he has insurance and would likely rebuild.

Watching from near the horse pasture, Tom Goslow shrugged off the horse kick, saying he was fine.

He also didn't pine over farm equipment of his own lost in the blaze.

He worried far more about his father.

"This," Tom said sadly, "was his pride and joy."

E-mail Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com

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