By Jim Brown
jim@peicanada.com

During the dinner hour Thursday O’Leary residents looking skyward saw a thick plume of white smoke that curled far into the horizon.

It was a fire at a Unionvale farmyard owned by Ewen Stetson. 

The call came through to firefighters at approximately 11:40 am.

Throughout the early afternoon hours exhausted firefighters from four departments - O’Leary, Alberton, Tignish and West Point - battled searing heat that topped 32 C and a persistent fire lurking amongst hundreds of hay and straw bales that could not easily be extinguished.

All told more than 200 straw bales and about 40 to 50 bales of hay were destroyed, estimated Mr Stetson, who praised firefighters for their “more than excellent” response.

Fortunately, a barn filled with about 20 Holstein cattle was spared and so was Mr Stetson’s home, just a short distance away.

O’Leary Fire Chief Ron Phillips said they were only minutes from a potential disaster.

“Another five minutes and it would have been an ugly scene out here,” he said.

A combined barn, a family home, Mr Stetson’s workshops and a trailer in which Mr Stetson’s mother lived were all at risk.

West Point fire chief Harvey Stewart says his men took frequent breaks during the blaze to keep from overheating under the hot, pitiless sun.

They worked for about as long as one oxygen tank lasted, about 10 to 15 minutes, before getting water and rest, he said.

“We worked in 10 to 15 minute shifts and then rested for 15 to 25 minutes,” said O’Leary Deputy Fire Chief Eric Gavin.

One O’Leary firefighter was taken to Western Hospital suffering from heat exhaustion but later returned to complete his shift, said Mr Gavin. The site was cleared by late afternoon, he said.

Throughout the afternoon workers on the farm were busy moving bales with farm equipment to safer locations, while firefighters directed heavy streams of water at hotspots.

The blaze started when loose hay came into contact with the motor of a bale wrapper.

“There was a round bale wrapper at the end of the field and he (worker) must have been working with the round bales and it caught fire and set fire to the rest of the pile,” said O’Leary Fire Chief Ron Phillips.

Barricades were set up at the O’Leary Corner and at the end of the Gaspe Bay Road on the O’Leary Road, to restrict access while firefighters battled the blaze.

Lindsay Stetson, Ewen Stetson’s daughter, said this was her first year wrapping bales and her first brush with potential disaster.

She said was in the nearby family home when the fire broke out.

“I saw the smoke outside and I went to the window and he (farm hand) came tearing through the yard with a tractor to get a chain so he could pull the wrapper away so that it wouldn’t spread.”

Ms Stetson said she was impressed by the generosity of local residents, who even during the blaze dropped by to offer assistance.

“A lot of people have dropped by offering their help,” she said.

Her father said he had received at least half a dozen offers of help. 

Ms Stetson says the family has enough for a “second-cut” in the field to make up for some of the lost hay, used as feed for their dairy cows.

West Point’s fire chief, meanwhile, said he never ceases to be impressed by how well the mutual aid system works in West Prince. 

Even with large numbers of fire vehicles and personnel assembling in one area, everything meshed together perfectly, including tanker trucks bringing loads of water in to fight the blaze, said Harvey Stewart.

“I’m always amazed at how well West Prince Mutual Aid works,” he said, adding experts throughout the country have told him that, too.

Mr Stewart added he wouldn’t be surprised if the West Prince mutual aid system was the best in Canada.