How to Configure an Equine Facility to Prevent and Better Respond to Barn Fires

1. Introduction

The tendency of most U.S. states and local fire jurisdictions to consider horse barns and veterinary treatment facilities as “agricultural buildings” has led to lax standards and reliance on traditional design, construction, and management practices that can contribute to the ability of fires to ignite and to spread quickly.

Many aspects of an equine facility can be considered as fire hazards (traditional wooden open interior aisle construction, use of hay and shavings and storage of these multiple potential ignition sources, lack of compartmentalization, etc.). Building a “fireproof” barn is not realistic; however, there are strong measures that can be taken to dramatically reduce the chance of an incident in your facility and that of clients. Prevention can be enhanced with updates to daily management practices, original property and facility design, and attendant emergency planning and practice. This paper will explore how to configure an equine facility to prevent barn fires based on new technologies and understanding of how fire behavior affects facilities for more efficient and effective response. 

Few practitioners and horse industry stakeholders are aware that a great percentage of barn fires that occur are fully involved within 5 to 7 minutes of ignition (implying the total loss of the facility and everything within it and that the local— especially a rural—fire department will not have even had time to arrive within this time constraint.) Most facilities reach a dangerous to life level of smoke production at the 3 to 5 minute mark. Realistic reporting of these fires includes very few incidents where the animals are successfully salvaged from a burning building (Figs. 1 and 2) and even fewer where the facility is not completely destroyed. It is unfortunate that equestrians have a common idealistic and romanticized view of barn fires, which includes thinking that the fire department will arrive, put out the fire, and retrieve their horses from the smoke. It is far more common that the entire facility is fully involved and the animals are long since dead from smoke inhalation when the fire department arrives on scene. Even if they arrive in time to attempt rescue, horses presented with firefighters in full gear and breathing apparatus are slow to accept being caught, haltered, and led by what must appear to be an alien being (Fig. 3). Numerous training simulations across the country by one of our authors (Gimenez) has shown that it is very difficult for firefighters under realistically simulated conditions to find horses in dark smoky stalls with firefighting gear and remove them safely. Firefighting gloves, masks, and clothing make it difficult to move, see, hear, and manipulate locks, halters, and even open latches in the dark and smoke.
 

There are numerous overlooked aspects to investigate when diagramming the layout of a future facility. Understand that most owners design a barn for its aesthetic appearance or efficiency, not necessarily for fire prevention, and rarely are veterinarians, fire prevention contractors, ventilation engineers, or fire marshals consulted by barn designers or builders. Barn fires occur all over the United States at various times of the year—there seems to be very little predictability to time of year, location, or facility type other than what would be expected (cold weather increases fires due to heating systems and hot weather increases fires due to fans and cooling systems.) Worse, the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) is not formatted for and makes it difficult to extract data appropriate to learning about these fires. Adding to the problem, many equine facilities were established decades ago and need retrofitting to modern codes while others are newly constructed but may not have ascribed to national recommendations and codes. No matter what the age of the building is, there are some simple improvements that can be made to reduce the incidence of equestrian barn fires and improve safety for response when it does occur. Some of these improvements represent a small financial investment, and others are changes in management and design.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has updated their standards for animal housing facilities in the 2013 version of NFPA 150², which includes horse facilities, although few local jurisdictions have adopted their guidelines. The NFPA recommendations remain the “best practices” reference for how to design, construct, and manage animal facilities for practitioners, clients, and owners. Their suggestions include numerous ways for both new construction and for retrofit of older facilities to reduce hazards to people and animals working and living within. Since many horse facilities are well known to increasingly feature human living spaces and electrical conveniences for both horses and people, we should not consider them just agricultural facilities. Improving standards for construction, especially for electrical service, would greatly decrease the number of electrical source fires.

It is important to recognize how much of a toll these incidents put on the equestrian industry. [...]