Wiring blamed for early morning barn fire in Browning

Check your barn’s wiring.

That is the message Amanda Kasparek has for other rural residents following a fire that destroyed the dairy barn originally built by her great-grandfather at N2996 CTH C in the town of Browning.

Kasparek and her fiancé James Kurth were awoken at about 3:30 a.m. on Monday by a young man ringing their doorbell letting them know their barn was on fire. Kasparek said smoke was coming from the south side of the barn and billowing out of the hay mow. She quickly called 9-1-1 and her parents who live a short distance away and worked to try to get some of her birds out of the barn.

She said her parents got there just before the fire department and by that time the whole barn was on fire. Fighters from both the Medford and Stetsonville fire departments were on the scene to battle the blaze.

According to Kasparek, the fire inspector determined the fire started with faulty wiring arcing in the hay mow and catching some of the old feed stored there on fire. The smoldering fire then sucked the oxygen out of the lower level of the barn killing the cats, dogs, rabbits and assorted other animals kept on the couple’s hobby farm.

“Just looking out the window and seeing the burnt barn is sickening,” Kasparek said. She noted that while her great-grandfather built the barn, it was her grandfather who wired it 50 years ago. She encourages every barn owner to have their wiring checked out and not wait 50 years to have it upgraded. “People need to be aware of old wiring in barns and get it checked out,” she said.

In addition to the barn, Kasparek said the nearby silos were damaged from the heat of the flames and she was told they would have to be torn down before they fell on their own. She said they will likely have to bulldoze everything. “It is pretty devastating,” she said.