EVACUATING YOUR BARN IN A FIRE
How Does a Horse Behave in a Fire?
There
are different kinds of fires which can cause different behaviors. In
the case of wildfires, where fire storms can be created, there is so much
noise and smoke outside the barn that it could be difficult to get the horses
to leave the security of their barn.
A fire that
starts in a hayloft, however, may drive a horse to escape, so it’s possible (especially
if your horses are accustomed to leaving the barn via a runway) that as soon as
stall doors are opened, the horses will leave the barn just as if they were
going out to pasture. My horses were trained to exit and enter the barn through
a short runway. Having accustomed them to this practice, I’m pretty sure
they would leave the barn in this manner in an emergency if I remained calm and
opened stall doors as I usually did (I wrote an article about this, A Helping
Hand—or Hoof, that’s posted at the end of this article). But don’t
assume anything—always be prepared to lead the horses out of the barn.
In their natural
habitat, horses would have been escaping from prairie fires; they would race for
a place of safety, such as crossing a river. Panic in a barn fire comes from
not being able to immediately escape, and then, from not being permitted to remain
in a “safe” place—in this case, the stall.
The old movie
scenes where horses were turned loose and ran through the fields and town were
a great deal more romantic than practical. There is no excuse for horses
to be running free; in their flight from danger they will hinder fire-fighting
operations, possibly cause traffic accidents, and at the least, inflict tremendous
damage to landscaping. Ideally, horses should be led some distance away and
securely tied. If the horses are turned out loose in a pasture, fasten the
gate securely and make absolutely certain that no animal is left alone. In
such a high stress event, a horse left alone will often try to join the rest of
the herd, even if it means breaking through fences.
This is why many horses die in fires:
- Lack of sprinkler systems to extinguish a fire while it is still small and hasn’t yet produced fatal amounts of toxic gases
- Debris or equipment in aisleways and stall bedding that adds to the fire fuel load
- Halters and lead ropes not easily accessible
- Horses that are hard to catch, hard to halter, and hard to lead
- If the roof fails quickly--which can happen with metal trusses that deform in heat—and the roof falls inward, horses are trapped in their stalls and injured or killed by the heavy, burning, falling debris.
The majority
of horses who die in barn fires die of smoke inhalation. Even though
they may be reluctant to leave their stall, their first reaction is often
to try to climb a wall to escape. This puts them right into the heaviest
smoke, since smoke will spread out along the ceiling if there is one directly
above the stalls (as in older bank barns converted from dairy to stables). If
there is no ceiling, and the flames have not broken through the roof allowing
smoke to vent, the smoke and all its toxic components will continue to push
downward into the stalls. All too often a fire smolders for awhile,
releasing toxic gases that kill the barn occupants before anyone even realizes
there is a fire.