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Highlands Today
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Barn Destroyed InLate Morning Blaze
Kathy Waters/Highlands Today
Training supervisor Charles Andrews, center, coordinates with firefighters to work a barn fire on Wednesday off of Arbuckle Creek Road.
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Published: December 6, 2007
A barn owned by Hartt S Y & Son was destroyed late Wednesday morning after a fire ravaged through it.
At first, though, firefighters thought it would be a lot worse than that.
Highlands County Fire Service training supervisor Charles Andrews said it was first reported that several hundred gallons of diesel were stored in a tank nearby. Tankers and engines from three fire departments rushed to keep the fire from reaching the tank.
After firefighters saved it, they realized the big threat turned out to be a tank of molasses.
"Molasses will burn if it gets going," said James Branca of the Highlands County Fire Service, but he said it was not readily combustible. Certainly not like diesel fuel.
Nonetheless, the firefighters spent more than 90 minutes putting the fire out.
No injuries were reported from the remote barn fire, located along Arbuckle Creek Road east of Sebring.
The cause of the fire was not yet known. The state Fire Marshal was investigating the fire by press time.
The fire was reported 11:27 a.m. and firefighters began to arrive at 11:42. Engines from Lorida, West Sebring and DeSoto City's volunteer fire departments responded.
The fire was reduced to a few small flames by 1 p.m., though a dispatcher said that Andrews did not tell him by 2:45 p.m. that the fire was completely contained.
The barn stored farm equipment for the Hartt family and their ranch. A pickup truck and a tractor parked outside the barn were also destroyed by the fire.
Ranch workers sat on the fence across the street and watched as one of their barns burned to the ground. Cars dotted the shoulders of Arbuckle Creek Road, which was closed toward Sebring by ongoing railroad repairs, but the fire added no traffic problems for the road.
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