A Hopkinton family lost several of their beloved goats Tuesday morning during a fire that destroyed their barn.
The fire at 46 Buzwell Road is believed to have started from a knocked-over heating lamp following a night of frigid temperatures.
An employee of Kirk Morrill’s saw the fire when he arrived on the property and managed to get several of the animals, including a calf, out of the barn. The Morrill family lost five of the 12 goats they owned; the other animals were examined by a vet for injuries and smoke inhalation.
It’s the second fire the Morrills have suffered in the past three years, according to Morrill.
Morrill, who runs a transportation company out of his home, said he lost his shop, along with his equipment, the day after Thanksgiving in 2013. The cause of that fire was ultimately undetermined, but Morrill said fire personnel believed it could have been caused by anything from a welding spark to an electrical issue.
That fire was tough, Morrill said, but it did not carry the same emotional loss as the animals.
“Equipment doesn’t have feelings,” he said. “It can come and go as it pleases. But my family is very close to the animals, and we take a lot of pride in our caretaking of them. Losing them is hard.”
Morrill comes from a family of animal caretakers: his family owns Morrill Farm Dairy in Penacook, and his uncle, Rob Morrill, said they had taken in the calf, who suffered from smoke inhalation and a little singed hair, but was otherwise fine. The goats went to Riverfare Farm in Webster, a family friend of Kirk Morrill, and will remain there until the Morrills are able to rebuild a barn for them.
Rob Morrill, speaking from the scene of the fire about 3:30 p.m., said his family helped clean up the debris from the destroyed barn, which he said would be gone by Tuesday evening.
“The agriculture community is small, but when something like this happens, it’s amazing what we can do to come together,” he said.
The call reporting the two-story, 1,000-square-foot barn engulfed in flames came in around 10 a.m., according to Hopkinton Fire Department’s Lt. Kevin Culpon. Fire crews quickly called a second alarm due to the need for more manpower and water transportation.
Cleaning up the debris was important, Culpon said, because of the nature of the incident: dry conditions, as well as the large amount of hay located on the second floor of the building, caused the fire to spread quickly, and the cold temperature meant water sprayed on the debris could freeze, concealing a fire burning underneath. He said an excavator would be arriving to remove the wreckage.
The fire was also difficult to put out, Culpon said, because the residence is located away from any hydrants. The second-alarm status was struck mostly to help with water transportation. Fire crews from Bow, Concord, Hopkinton, Warner and Webster responded, according to Culpon.