{"id":162390,"date":"2023-01-25T04:46:32","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T09:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=162390"},"modified":"2023-01-26T04:42:47","modified_gmt":"2023-01-26T09:42:47","slug":"update-cause-of-barn-fire-unknown-still-smoldering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2023\/01\/25\/update-cause-of-barn-fire-unknown-still-smoldering\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: cause of barn fire unknown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause of a massive weekend fire at a storage barn in Liberty Township remains unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office was called, so it\u2019s an ongoing investigation,\u201d Ohio City Volunteer Fire and EMS Chief Brandon Bowen said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A storage barn at Gina Dairy LCC was engulfed in flames Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Bob Barnes\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As first reported on Monday, Ohio City firefighters were dispatched to Gina Dairy LLC in the 14000 block of Richey Road, near Wren Landeck Road shortly before 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Rockford, Willshire and Wren fire departments were called to provide mutual aid. More than two dozen firefighters were on the scene well into early Sunday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowen noted the fire posed two major challenges to firefighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe sheer volume of material in the building (mainly hay and straw) would be one and also the location of the building on-site and the accessibility to it, because it was surrounded on three sides by mud,\u201d Bowen explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also noted it took firefighters approximately nine hours and 1.5 million gallons of water, including water from a nearby pond, to bring the blaze under control, but it continues to smolder and will likely continue to do so for several days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s being managed now, it\u2019s just a controlled burn,\u201d Bowen stated. \u201cThere\u2019s still active burning but it\u2019s all contained inside of that building. I\u2019m not overly concerned as long as it doesn\u2019t turn and somehow come to a point where it will affect livestock but we have contingency plans in place if that were to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all organic material (in the barn) \u2013 there\u2019s no plastic, rubber or petroleum based products and the building is 100 percent steel so it didn\u2019t burn,\u201d Bowen said. \u201cI\u2019ve been in contact with (Van Wert County EMA Director) Rick McCoy about the runoff to the ditch. Environmentally it\u2019s probably the best course of action just to let it take its toll because of the concern of runoff water going into the ditch and the contamination of water supply which feeds the city of Van Wert \u2013 things of that nature become a concern.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowen added the contingency plans include moving animals if necessary and he said firefighters remain at the scene to monitor the controlled burn. He also confirmed there were no injuries to firefighters or any of the livestock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor The cause of a massive weekend fire at a storage barn in Liberty Township remains unknown. \u201cThe State Fire Marshal\u2019s Office was called, so it\u2019s an ongoing investigation,\u201d Ohio City Volunteer Fire and EMS Chief Brandon Bowen said on Tuesday. As first reported on Monday, Ohio City firefighters were dispatched to Gina […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-11 06:49:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162390"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162474,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162390\/revisions\/162474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}