SAFE HAY STORAGE
A separate
hay storage building should be constructed if at all possible, but of course,
that’s the ideal situation. Property limitations may force you to have upper level hay
storage in a new barn, or in an existing barn you may feel you are “stuck with it.” There are ways to help make these arrangements less
of a hazard.
Upper-level
hay storage with a solid floor, such as in a bank barn, is preferable to stall-level storage because heat, smoke, and flame
move upward. Should a fire begin on the upper level, upward movement of the
fire and its products may allow a few more minutes for evacuation of horses from
the lower level.
Barns with metal or tin sheet
roofs, asphalt shingles over wood, or plastic skylight panels, will be breached
by the fire allowing hot gases and flames to vent. Roof vents or cupolas provide an immediate means of venting. That's one reason why
all barn roofs should have one or the other, spaced at regular intervals.
If hay is stored at stall-level, the area must
be completely separated from the stalls and enclosed in a room with two-hour
fire-resistant roofing and wall materials. This isn’t a practical solution
to begin with unless you are purchasing and storing hay for only a few animals and you purchase hay frequently. In reality, though, no one wants
to be lugging hay bales a distance of 100 feet from one building to another
on a daily basis, so many people keep a day or two’s supply of hay near the
stalls or enclosures in their barn. That’s not ideal, but it is kind of practical
when you consider the labor involved in caring for animals on a day-to-day
basis.
If you’re in the fortunate situation
of building a separate hay barn, your first consideration must be the location
of the hay barn in relation to other structures. If you have the space,
a 100-foot separation is ideal. This provides protection for other buildings
from wind conditions and heat radiation in the event of a fire. With
a 20 mph wind, sparks can be carried some distance, such as what happens in
wildfires where the flames jump fire lines. Heat radiation is another
way fires spread, and 50-100 feet is not a great distance where radiation
is involved. The
heat can be great enough to dry out adjacent structures and allow them to
ignite. So, if you can afford a separate hay barn, don’t build it too
close to your other buildings because if it’s too close you risk losing your
other buildings as well.
And speaking of saving buildings: it’s very unlikely that if your hay barn catches fire that it can be saved. If there are no animals or humans in the building to be rescued, you may find the fire department handling fire suppression in one of several ways, depending on the situation and the necessity to save nearby buildings from catching fire. Mike Weider, senior editor at IFSTA/Fire Protection Publications in Stillwater, Oklahoma explained that from a firefighting aspect in his excellent article “Hay Barn Fires” published in the April 1998 issue of Firehouse, which follows this section.
