WHITEWATER REGION (Beachburg) — A Beachburg teenager is the reason a barn fire at his family’s dairy farm didn’t turn out as bad as it could have been.
Around 4 p.m. Monday, April 23, Daniel Brubacher was shooting at a bird in a barn when it flew to a covered dome.
As he was chasing it, “I saw smoke and I went and got Cindy.”
Whitewater Region Fire chief Jonathan Wilker talks with dairy barn owner Cindy Brubacher.However, she was heading up the road to pick up their younger son, Leland, who was getting off the school bus. She saw the smoke in her rear-view mirror and turned around, noting her son Daniel coming up the road.
She called 911 and was advised to stay away from the burning building.
While Daniel did want to go into the barn and get the dairy cows out, he knew his parents had taught him to never go into a burning building.
Whitewater Region firefighters responded to the barn fire on Glen Road.
Fire chief Jonathan Wilker said the call came in shortly after 4 p.m. and two hours later the firefighters were gone.
The back wall of the milking barn, which is owned by Cindy and Don Brubacher, was damaged by fire and a grassy area between two barns was burned, he said.
It was quick response with a “fast offensive attack,” Chief Wilker said.
While all stations were paged out, those who hadn’t arrived were stood down shortly after firefighters from Beachburg arrived on scene.
The cause of the fire, and the amount of damage, is still being investigated by the fire department.
