(La Porte County, IN) - Nine farm animals a family kept for use in 4-H perished in a La Porte County barn fire but more could have died if not for police helping with the evacuation.

 

Larry Tuholski, one of the owners of the family farm along County Road 100 South in Mill Creek, said five pigs and four goats were lost in the Sunday evening blaze.

 

The fire destroyed two barns that had separate walls adjacent to each other and a common metal roof.

 

Tuholski said one of the barns now used for storage was a milking parlor until the family decided to get out of the dairy business in 2000.

 

The family now raises strictly corn, soybeans and popcorn on more than 5,000 acres while a neighbor keeps about 350 head of steer on the property.

 

The other barn was like a workshop area used also for storage.

 

Tuholski said his son, Joe, put some parts back up in the facility and left for his house nearby then spotted smoke a short time later.

 

He and other family members started getting as many things out of the barns as they could, including some pick-up trucks and tractors.

 

Tuholski said a number of sheep were also spared from the flames, including several ones a La Porte County Sheriff’s Deputy placed over a fence for safe keeping.

 

They were not able to save a lot of equipment, including a small tractor attached to a tiller, because of the rapidly spreading flames.

 

“When the fire got in that ceiling area, it took off like gangbusters,” he said.

 

Pleasant Township Fire Chief Kevin Bluhm said flames were shooting from the roof in one building and spreading to the other structure when firefighters first pulled up.

 

He said they attacked the fire by first driving the flames away from an area containing herbicides and other chemicals to prevent a potential breathing hazard.

 

Bluhm said an aerial truck from the La Porte Fire Department was brought in to get more water onto the flames from up above once the metal roof started being torn from one of the structures with block walls.

 

The siding of the other structure was made of tin, which was ripped away to get water inside from ground level.

 

Bluhm said the Indiana State Fire Marshal’s Office will assist in trying to determine the cause of the fire.

 

Tuholski said he doesn’t have a clue.

 

“I’ve been picking my brain since the fire trying to figure out what could have happened,” he said.

 

Other responding firefighters were from Lincoln, Kankakee and Scipio townships, Kingsford-Union, Kingsbury and North Liberty.

 

“We had a large amount of tankers shuttling water in,” Bluhm said.