Air Force limits the damage

FIRE, LIKE water, is essential to life. But when out of control, it can wreak havoc and devastation threatening both life and limb.

In the early hours of Tues, Apr 12, we were to experience the destructive power of fire when one of our farrowing houses was consumed by flames.

The building had been refurbished three years ago and was housing 12 sows, all of whom were at the point of farrowing down when the disaster occurred.

It is thought that a young gilt had managed to turn around within her farrowing crate and escaped into the central passage of the building, pulling down one of the creep lights onto the bed of litter laid in preparation for the piglets’ arrival.

alarm

By chance I was close to the scene attending our small flock of Norfolk Horn sheep, lambing elsewhere in the farmyard. Our alarm system was activated when the power to the farrowing house was severed at the start of the fire.

Realising the situation was about to get out of control, I phoned the fire section at neighbouring RAF Wittering, which were on site with two appliances within minutes.

It was the swift response that saved the whole unit of about 4000 pigs from going up in flames. Our sincere thanks go to the four-man team of Green Watch for their professionalism.

Although never taking the RAF for granted, it is a fact of our close proximity that when in trouble we have called upon our special relationship. After all, we live and work within 50m of the main runway which is home to the Harrier jump-jet.

So that the RAF fire section was not seen to compromise its first duty, a call was also made to the civilian emergency services which provided two further appliances, albeit after 30 minutes, from both Peterborough and Stamford.

With everything thoroughly damped down and all thoughts of sleep long since dispelled, it was time for pig unit manager David Neal and myself to assess the damage.

The livestock casualties were fortunately restricted to 12 breeding sows, but the farrowing house is a write-off. Being a specialist building, this leaves us with a large hole in farrowing accommodation.

It has been suggested to us that this could be filled by buying second-hand farrowing arks. We will be taking this idea up and siting them in a four-acre grass paddock for sows and litters to be transferred at 1-2 weeks of age.

It’s a short-term solution and one that thankfully coincides with warmer weather. Long-term, we will be looking at replacing the building and we have already invited tenders to quote for rebuilding.

insurers

Our insurers have been accommodating, since speed is of the essence in clearing up after the fire.

The carcasses were extracted from the building once the remains of the roof had been made safe and loaded into a skip for collection and incineration elsewhere.

The building presented a different problem, since the roof was made of asbestos sheets and required specialist demolition and disposal as hazardous waste.

By Friday, Apr 15, four days after the fire, all had been cleared away safely leaving a large void and an equally large feeling of loss.

It was also with some relief since things could have been so much worse.