DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. — A large fire at a Haldeman Farms property in East Hanover Township burned all day Tuesday and will continue to burn for several more days.
Flames broke out at the property on Trail Road around 11:00 Monday night.
“This entire thing was lit last night, the whole sky,” said Charlie Shakal, who lives nearby. “They were coming from Linglestown, the trucks.”
Gern Haldeman Jr. owns the farm with his brothers. He and his wife live across the street and were alerted to the flames by a neighbor.
“I’m guessing it may have taken between 15 and 20 minutes for it to be fully involved, that’s how fast it traveled,” Haldeman Jr. said.
He told FOX43 the farm had recently changed its strategy when it comes to stacking hay.
“We left an air gap between the bales in an effort to, if the bales do get wet and we do have some hot bales, there would be air traveling through but I found last night that’s a double-edged sword,” he continued. “In the event of a fire, we have a whole lot more surface area that can burn, whereas if the bales are stacked tight, it doesn’t burn nearly as fast.”
No one was injured and Haldeman Jr., who is also chief of operations for the farm, was able to save a piece of equipment that was parked by the hay.
Firefighters worked to temper the flames overnight, but now the fire is left to burn out on its own.
“I can fix a lot of things, but I can’t fix this,” said Haldeman Jr. “I feel bad for the people who have to endure the smoke. Hopefully the smoke will go up and not travel low on the ground.”
A barn on the property sustained minimal heat damage in the fire but was fortunately able to be saved.
The farm grows hay for the mushroom industry, with much of it shipped down to Chester County.
The crop that went up in flames was all grown this year and is now hundreds of thousands of dollars lost for the business.
“We’ll clean up and continue and move on,” said Haldeman Jr. “We will stir this up and try to get most of it to burn quickly, clean up the site and debris once it’s cool, and probably spread it on the field. There’s still a lot of nutrients in the ash.”
It’s not the first time either. Haldeman Farms had a similar fire in 2011 which destroyed two hay sheds and burned for six days in the same spot.
“They were long buildings so that added to the heat to the intensity of the fire, short-term, this [fire] of course, [the] structures were not here so it was simply the crop that burned,” Haldeman Jr. explained.
Gern says in both 2011 and on Monday night, the fire started on the west side of the stack, late at night.
“At this point, I’m not pointing any fingers, but things just don’t add up,” he said. “If there was going to be any spontaneous combustion, I would have certainly thought the second cutting would be the source of that combustion, not the first cutting which has been here for months…so I am very, very suspicious of this fire.”
A Pennsylvania State Police fire marshal was on scene Tuesday morning and has ruled the cause of the fire as unable to be determined.
“I believe the fire in 2011 is still undetermined as well and I get it, it’s very difficult to figure out how and when a fire like this started,” said Haldeman Jr.
Haldeman Jr. has rounded up a group of friends who are helping him keep watch on the fire over the next several days. They will each take turns watching the fire in three-hour shifts. A water tanker remains on site so they can continue to douse the side of the hay pile closest to the storage barn.