PERTH — After seven barns and a Mississippi Mills
fire truck went down in flames, farmers were puzzled about the causes.
Evidence is mounting and police are now convinced an arsonist is at work.
The third fire, on the Snedden farm on County Road 29
southwest of Ottawa, and the fire at Jim Henry’s barn were the
clinchers. Before that some farmers had already begun boarding up their
barns and turning their cattle out to pasture at night.
Mississippi Mills fire chief, Art Mills, said Jim Henry
stored 8,000 square bales on Wednesday night, July 31. On the Thursday the
barn burned. "The fire didn’t start where the hay was stored,"
he said, explaining that the barn was L-shaped.
On the third attempt on the Snedden farm, someone
torched the building next to the dairy barn, a well kept modern structure
with some of the finest show cows in the east. The fire was put out and
the dairy barn saved.
Marylyn Snedden reported flares left behind after the
first two fires. Chief Brown wouldn’t confirm or deny the report. But
when asked if they were left behind by the company that paved the barn
yard, Chief Brown assured Farmers Forum the flares weren’t left
behind by the company. Then in early August two emergency flares were left
behind in what appears to have been an attempt to set a vacant house on
fire.
Municipalities and insurance companies so far are
offering $5,500 for information leading to the conviction of the arsonist.
"The OPP from Perth is out in force," Brown said. "We’re
getting hundreds of tips."
The chief says there is a pattern. Over a two-week
period the arsonist struck on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. All of the
farms are within Ramsay Township, near Almonte west of Ottawa, and more
and more residents are saying the fires are being set by someone in the
area who is very knowledgeable. Chief Brown says the fire truck was burned
while it was within a locked compound.
In the mid-70s a similar rash of barn fires occurred at
Russell in Prescott County. The arsonist was a member of the fire
department.
The biggest loss of life occurred on Ed Lowry’s farm
close to Carleton Place. Lowry lost about 60 pigs, 10 calves, a steer and
a bull. The beef herd and the horses were out on a nearby pasture when the
fire occurred in the late afternoon. A volunteer firefighter, he was
coming back from his neighbouring farm when he received a call on his
pager to go to a fire. He knew right away it was his own place, says his
daughter, Rhonda Whitmarsh.
But his son Steve was the first on the scene. He jumped into the
flaming cattle truck parked by the barn and drove it clear.
