Sheep, lambs and pony perished in barn blaze

Guernsey States vet David Chamberlain said 44 sheep, two lambs and an elderly pony were consumed by the blaze, which took hold in a large agricultural building between the Route de St Andre and La Rue des Morts on Sunday afternoon.

Nearby residents described their shock at witnessing the fire, which is not being treated as suspicious.

Simon and Frederica Kirkpatrick saw the early stages of the blaze from the front room of their house and initially feared it was a house fire.

‘I heard a noise which I didn’t recognise,’ Mr Kirkpatrick said.

‘Then about 10 seconds later, I saw some smoke appearing out of what I thought was the roof of the house opposite. Then before I’d even got up, there were clouds of black smoke. On the way out here I stubbed my toe quite badly.

‘I was pointing and saying: “Look, look!” because by then voluminous black smoke was coming out of what I thought was Brin and Chantal’s house [opposite]. My wife and daughter, when they realised what it was, ran because they had shoes on. I took over dealing with traffic.’

Chantal Harrison’s property backs onto the field where the barn was burning.

‘My husband said: “Have you seen the smoke?” My son was playing football, and it basically just swamped the whole of the pitch outside,’ she said.

‘So I got him running in and we informed the lady who owned the property, and the fire engines came pretty quickly.

‘Obviously, at the time, there was concern about what chemicals were involved. She parked her car in our driveway,’ Mrs Kirkpatrick told us, ‘and then she came in, in quite a state. She was very distressed.’

Mrs Kirkpatrick used a neighbour’s hose to douse the hedges of properties surrounding the barn, to help prevent further spread. However, she said she was advised by firefighters to keep clear in case the smoke contained particles of asbestos. She then became aware of the scale of the challenge to tackle the fire.

La Rue des Morts is the road that passes closest to the barn, but it is a very narrow lane with sharp bends. However, a track leads to the property from the main road.

‘They couldn’t get the fire engine up the track to where the sheds were because it’s too narrow a track. So it had to stop well back from it,’ Mrs Kirkpatrick told us.

She said water was sourced from the junction with La Vassalerie and Candie Road.

‘We didn’t know there were animals in there because you couldn’t hear any distress of an animal or anything,’ she said.

‘But it may well have been too late at that point.’

During the next few hours, the couple made cups of tea for the police, who stayed to direct traffic and remained on the scene until the evening.

The Guernsey Press was unable to contact the property owner.