The backbone of America came together to help those in need, and it was a beautiful thing to see. It’s time to see the true heroes, and recognize them as such.
I have to say that when I looked at the context of this article I was immediately reminded of the 80’s country music band Alabama and their song “40-hour Week”. Folks, there are people in this country who work hard on a daily basis, and these farmers that pitched in to put out this fire are definitely that type.
The Topton Fire Company arrived at the scene of a Maxatawny Township barn fire at 7:30 last Saturday, they knew they were in for a challenge simply because smoke was already pouring out of the structure and the flames were engulfing the roof.
Fire officials struck that second alarm immediately, and they also were requesting additional tankers in the effort to put out the flames.
Meanwhile, the farmers had already started evacuating the livestock from the lower level of the barn, which was located in the 400 block of High Road. The flames continued to soar to the top of the barn, which was where the hay was stored.
“It’s their livelihood,” Topton Fire Chief Jason Robinson said last Sunday. “It’s what they do. It’s their farm. It’s their animals.”
The good news is that even though the barn burned down, the farmers were able to save almost all of their cows; only one cow out of the estimated seven dozen had perished in the fire. Most importantly, no firefighters, community members, or farmers were injured in this massive blaze.
All told, it was a tremendous community effort to put out the blaze, as Robinson noted that at least 15-20 first responders were at the scene, along with plenty of neighboring farmers responding to the scene as well.
“It seemed like every time we turned around, there were five more farmers there helping,” Robinson said.
Once the farmers and the fire officials had the cow corralled in a safe area that was far away from the fire, Robinson said that many of the farmers were using trailers to transport the cows to a neighboring farm. A farmer at that location had an empty barn where the cows were going to be able to stay for a temporary time.
There were plenty of other community members who showed up with some backbone (no pun intended), providing jugs of water, mint tea, and even Gatorade and egg sandwiches, Robinson said.
“It’s tremendous how everyone works together in the area,” he said.
Major damage was done to the top barn, but firefighters were able to stop the fire in time to salvage some of the equipment in the lower barn, Robinson said.
Robinson said he was proud of how this small Pennsylvania community was able to come together to fight this blaze. The backbone of America is alive and well!