At 9:45 p.m. a barn fire was reported on Pruitt Road near the Nature Center in South Montgomery County. South Montgomery County and Timber Lakes Fire Departments responded. Within minutes of arriving and seeing the difficulty of getting to the scene and having enough water a second alarm was pulled bringing River Plantation, Needham and Spring Fire Departments.
As fire fighters started pulling hose they realized realized the barn was actually Conroe ISD’s Agricultural barn. The animals here were owned by students of both College Park High School and Woodlands High School FFA.
Firefighters worked in temperatures of 25 degrees with wind-chills bringing it lower. Ice was forming on pen gates and later on helmets of the firefighters.
According to officials there were 17 pigs in the barn. Two were to be shown in a week and the remainder at the Montgomery County Fair.
The kids put a lot of work , both time and effort into raising these animals Now 17 Ag Students are without their project this year.
The cattle barn which was forty feet from the barn that burned was untouched and those animals were not injured at all.
This is a very sad accident that was probably do to a judgement error. I know that several years ago the school where I am teaching at had a similar accident that was due to a heat lamp. With it getting colder someone probably thought that they would give their pig more heat and either got the wrong type of heat lamp or got it to close to where the pig knocked it down into the shavings. VERY VERY SAD time for all of those students and families involved. Just very thankful that no persons were harmed and that it was contained to just one barn. My condolences to all those involved. We are working taking donations from our FFA Chapter to make a donation to these students and the Conroe ISD Ag Facility.
The Fire Marshal has not determined a cause as of yet!
This is so sad for those students that put in that hard work with their animals. I know that those kids think of their animals as four-legged members of the family. A friend’s daughter lost her pig to this fire. RIP Maxwell.