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EVACUATING YOUR BARN IN A FIRE (page 3)
Changes to Make Now:
- Get in the habit of wearing natural-fiber clothing and non-rubber soled shoes or boots in the barn. Exposed skin begins to burn at 140°F. Synthetic or nylon clothing will melt, as will the rubber soles on shoes, and cause serious burns.
- Make a shift away from using nylon halters and lead ropes inside the barn to using leather halters and leather or cotton lead ropes. Nylon can melt to the horse’s skin. Remember too, that metal fittings on equipment can become hot enough to burn you and your horse.
- Teach every horse, regardless of age, to load into a trailer. If you have to evacuate using trailers, a horse that balks at loading, or refuses to load, imperils the life of every other horse, and maybe you.
- Teach every horse to accept a halter, even foals a few days old, and make sure you teach the foals to lead with or without Mommy in sight. You may have to lead that baby out through a pitch-black aisleway where Mommy can’t be seen, or possibly, not even heard, over the noise of the fire. Ron and Cheryl Chernicky, of Rainbow Ridge Farm in Novelty, Ohio, teach this to their foals. Cheryl’s article about halter training is in the contributor section in Evacuating Your Barn.
- Make your horses familiar with the sights and sounds of emergency situations such as flashing lights, sirens, and firefighters in turnout gear.
- Teach your local fire department members how to halter and lead a horse, and give the fire department a copy of your evacuation plan along with a sketch of your barn and property layout, including stall diagrams and pastures or paddocks to be used (see my sample “stall sketch” at the end of this article)
- Make your evacuation plan—which should have an escape route from each stall, an alternate route, and the destination—and then hold trial evacuations to see if your plan works or needs adjustment. Once you’re satisfied with your plan, hold periodic fire drills in daylight and at night (without turning on lights).
- Install glow-in-the-dark exit signs, arrows, and door markers wherever needed in your barn to help people locate stalls, directions to move out of the barn, and the exterior doorways. Photoluminescent signs are not just for fire evacuation, though. They'll safely guide you around your barn in case of a general power outage, and some of them will stay "lit" for up to 8 hours. They don't require electricity or batteries since they recharge in ambient light. Photoluminescent signs are widely available; you can find companies selling the signs by doing an online search for "photoluminescent signs."
- You may need a double hasp on some stall doors for a horse that can open its door, but never place a lock on a stall door, and do not lock or otherwise disable an exit door by using an interior latch. For people and horses, exit doors must be able to be quickly opened from OUTSIDE the barn.
Here’s a “what-if” example:
Jane is alone in the barn at midnight, waiting for a mare
to deliver, but she’s a little nervous about being by herself so she locks
herself in by using interior latches on both exit doors. While she’s
waiting, she thinks she smells smoke and climbs the ladder to the loft
where she sees smoke curling from the stack of new hay. In her rush
to get help, she slips off the ladder and falls, twisting her ankle or
possibly sustaining a worse injury. While she is struggling
to get to the barn phone—if she can—the fire erupts in the loft and is
spotted by a passer-by who calls 9-1-1. The fire department is dispatched,
but loses valuable time breaking INTO the barn because Jane had latched
the doors from the inside. In those few lost minutes, Jane and the
horses could die from smoke inhalation. . . .
The message: NEVER “BURGLAR-PROOF”
YOUR BARN IN ANY WAY THAT PREVENTS IMMEDIATE EMERGENCY ACCESS. If you’re concerned about
protecting tack and equipment from theft, go ahead and lock your tack room. If
tack is lost in a fire it may be aggravating, but so what? If your horses
and other animals (and all the people on the scene) are safe, and all you
lose in the fire is a building and equipment, that’s great. That’s
why we have insurance.