'Hot hay' attributed to large barn fire just east of St. Thomas, Ont.

There is a strong smell of smoke in the air in St. Thomas and it doesn’t have anything to do with forest fires.

A barn full of hay about one kilometre east of the city limits on Southdale Line in Central Elgin caught fire around 1 a.m.

“We arrived on scene and it was fully involved through the roof of the cover,” Murray DeCorte, Yarmouth district chief of the Central Elgin Fire Department told CTV News London around 2:30 a.m. “We’re attributing this to warm hay. When we got here we started pouring water on it as it was burning right through both ends of the barn.”

Bill Walters, the son of farm owners Steve and Betty Walters, was using a loader to take the hay out of the barn and moving to the side, as Central Elgin firefighters were pouring water on it to put out the flames.

Fire crews from Central Elgin and Southwold shuttle water to help combat a barn fire just east of St. Thomas, Ont. on July 8, 2023. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)“We’re slowly digging the hay out and we are putting it out as we dig it out,” said Decorte. “The structure is still standing so we can get in with the tractor and get it cleaned out.”

Betty Walters told CTV News London they are thankful the barn was the one at the farthest north end of the property, with no other structures close by.

“The wind is also good tonight,” said Walters.

If any of their other barns had caught fire, it would have spread very quickly and they would have lost farm machinery, transport trucks and other barns have dozens of cattle.

A barn full of hay went up in flames around 1 a.m. just east of St. Thomas, Ont. on July 8, 2023. (Brent Lale/CTV News London) “When I got the call and know where it is, I was hoping it wasn’t one of the other barns as it would have been a lot harder to deal with,” said Decorte. “We are shuttling water with three tankers to keep the water coming in and we are doing a good job of slowly putting it out.”

Central Elgin fire had support from Southwold Fire Deparment and were shuttling water from Centennial Avenue, about a kilometer-and-a-half away.

As of Saturday morning, crews were still on scene and fire trucks were still arriving with water to put out hot spots.