It's taken me more then a month to recover from this incident enough to write a blog entry about it. It's a good story and an important lesson in fire safety which is why I feel compelled to share it. It's also just another little adventure on the farm that serves to keep us humble and appreciative of what we have going on here.
It was an early April evening and I'd just finished seeding dozens of flats of pepper and eggplant seeds in our newly built greenhouse. As the sun set, I prepared to light a fire in our newly installed woodstove which we had put in with the hope of reducing our propane dependence (and costs!). The stove had come from a friend's home and it arrived full of long dead ashes which we had shovelled out into a plastic pail when we had installed it. Now, a few days later, the ashes had built up in the stove again and I thought it best to shovel them out before lighting the evening fire. Without thinking (obviously), I grabbed the plastic pail and piled the fresh ashes in, placing it back beside the door when I was done. After stoking the fire, I headed up to the house to get ready for an evening trip to the sugar shack. About an hour later as I'm heading out the door for the maple bush, I decide to peek in at the fire to make sure it's burning well before I take off for the night. As I approached the door, I immediately knew something was wrong...I couldn't see through the transparent plastic walls of the greenhouse. When I threw open the door, I figured out why...the entire greenhouse was full of thick black smoke. All I could see through the smoke was flames shooting up from the base of our electrical panel (not a good sight!). I somehow had the good sense to run to turn off the breaker to the greenhouse and then promptly froze, not knowing what to do next. I called my friend and told her the greenhouse was on fire....she (not so calmly) suggested I find the fire extinguisher and put it out. Which I did. When the smoke cleared, we assessed the damage. Gone were the plastic pail of ashes, a hose, a fan, 10 trays of eggplant seeds and the wooden base of the electrical panel. The conduit (containing the wires) was burnt to a crisp. Amazingly the plastic greenhouse covering was undamaged as was the rest of the structure. By all accounts if I'd been out there a mere 5 minutes later, the greenhouse (and hundreds of trays of seedlings) would have gone up in smoke. A month later, and after a visit from the electrician, there is virtually no evidence of the blaze.
Lessons learned:
- Don't put live ashes in plastic pails
- Own a fire extinguisher (and know where it is and how to use it)
- Don't underestimate the destructive power of fire
Now that I've recovered from the trauma of almost destroying my livelihood in one evening, I can look back and appreciate the way things worked out, the lessons learned and the adventures I'm having pursuing this farming career. On to the next one! Stay tuned...
shared stories from the fields of our 70-acre organic farm
