The smell from this fire is going to stick around for awhile.
The Keremeos Volunteer Fire Department was called out to a manure pile on fire at Rossdown Turkey Farm Friday afternoon.
The foul fowl fire started around 3:30 p.m. fire chief Jordy Bosscha said.
The fire took a crew of nine firefighters about four hours to extinguish and another hour to cleanup hoses and gear.
“Just when you think it is out it flares up again. It’s like a whack-a-mole. It’s here then it’s over there and so on. It’ll smoulder undetected for a long time then start burning again,” Bosscha said when asked what the challenges were around putting out a manure fire.
After several hours of trying to extinguish the fire, Dutchies excavating was called to move the piles of manure around so firefighters could ensure the fire was out.
Bosscha said the cause of the fire was not known, but that “spontaneous combustion happens quite often,” with manure piles.
Firefigthers managed to stay relatively clean and no one slipped and fell in the manure, but for many of the crew the stench of burning turkey manure stomach turning at times.
“I didn’t think it was too bad but others were complaining,” Bosscha said.
“Gear definitely has an aroma. Hopefully everybody cleaned their gear or it will be stinky for awhile.”
Kris Friesen owner of Rossdown Turkey Farm issued this statement on social media Friday.
“We just want to ease some rumours going around that shots were fired at the farm and this is not true. The manure pile spontaneously caught fire today while I was on the coast for a course, but thanks to the local fire department and Dutchies excavating it is now under control and put out.”
