Tragic stable fire

[Catherine]

People in Ontario are still stunned by the news.  A large stable complex for race horses and trainers has had a major fire.
It is estimated that over 40 horses died.
Firefighters did the best they could, but the fire spread quickly and there was no sprinkler system.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pu...-1.3390916

Some people have lost everything and many people are out of work.  And off course many fine horses died. They had no hope of rescue once the fire started.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati...e28016105/


It is hard to take in a tragedy like this.

[Tobi]

That is terribly sad news. I am sorry for the peoples' losses, but my thoughts are with those poor horses who must have suffered tremendously.
No sprinkler system? Why not...? They had lives in their care.

[Ruth]

That is so sad. I lost a cat in a fire many years ago. This is truly a tragedy.

[Catherine]

This was a fairly new barn. Why wouldn't it have sprinklers and some general safety precautions.
There seems to be no provision or plan for rescuing horses in a fire. It would have been frightening for them. They smelt the smoke and wanted to run, but had no way out. There needs to be a way to get horses to safety in a barn fire. Actually any animals in a barn fire don't stand a chance. We are so big on caging them that we don't plan for their safety.

[Ruth]

It's very sad that people don't take the appropriate precautions. Seems to be a lack of really caring about them.

[Catherine]

There have been so many barn fires this month that it has people talking about the issue. The fires are under investigation. I am hoping there are some good recommendations that will help prevent further tragedies.

[Ruth]

I hope so, too. I hope they aren't intentionally setting fires for insurance money. I know that people insure horses sometimes because my brother had insurance on his horses.

[Catherine]

I think they will look into that, but in most cases it wouldn't be the insurance. In the big horse barn fire, the barn was fairly new and the horses belonged to a number of different people. Most of them are out of work now. There was nothing to be gained by the fire.

[Ruth]

Oh, okay. I wasn't sure of the circumstances. I hope they do look into it and find out what the cause is so it doesn't happen again.

[Catherine]

It is more likely faulty wiring or dangerous use of heaters. A lot of people are careless about using heaters around stuff that burns easily. Barns have hay and straw. They would be better to have built in heating systems, smoke detectors and sprinkler systems.
I think there need to be changes to the building codes  or what ever it would take to make barns safer.