Overnight fire in rural area destroys barn, kills sheep

UPDATE: Firefighters worked for hours to extinguish an overnight farm fire.

Crews from Swisher and Fairfax arrived to the Stepanek farm at 6106 Linn Johnson Rd.  around 2:30 a.m.

Flames were coming from an old hog shed and a sheep barn. Farm owners said they heard a pop just after 2 a.m. and went outside to find the fire. They then called 911.

The hog barn held only machinery, but farm owners said about 35 sheep lived inside the sheep barn. So far, crews have only recovered the body of one dead sheep. It appears most escaped into a neighboring field.

“(We) did lose three mothers and four babies that were pinned up,”  farm owner Doug Stepanek said.

Crews believe a heat lamp used to warm the sheep sparked the fire. Firefighters said it was a slow, tedious process to completely extinguish the fire.

“The hardest part, the building collapsed on top of all the straw and the hay, and it's metal so we had to pull the metal sides and roof off all of the building as it was burning. So we had to partially put the fire out, pull the tin off and keep putting it out as you go,” Fairfax fire chief Mike Sankot  said.

Flames destroyed the sheep barn, but crews were able to stop it from damaging too much of the old hog building.

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