City Life Farms’ owner Brian Mendieta is counting his blessings after an early morning fire burned down his barn.
“I started crying when the firefighters showed up,” said Mendieta. “I’m just glad it wasn’t my house. No animals got hurt. It’s just stuff that we lost.”
The barn at City Life Farms went up in flames early-morning hours of Dec. 15. The structure was destroyed, but the cattle inside escaped unharmed and there were no other injuries reported.
“I woke up at four in the morning to the power out in my house and a big orange glow in my back yard,” said Mendieta. “I ran out and saw that my barn was gone. It’s toast.”
Mendieta called the fire department and managed to save his livestock, but lost a freezer and a great deal of product. Three fire trucks arrived on scene and the fire was put out in a matter of minutes.
“The fire department came and put the fire out, but there wasn’t much left to put out,” said Mendieta. “I lost my tractor, several fridges full of meat. My neighbor’s beef was in there, and a lot of sentimental stuff was in there.”
Westlock County fire chief John Biro said that the fire remains under investigation.
“There wasn’t much remaining,” said Biro.
“It could have been burning for an hour or two before it was noticed. Right now it’s still in the midst of investigation, there’s a few things that we have to rule out before we can make a determination.”
Despite the setback, Mendieta is still planning to host a turkey carving party on Christmas Eve.
“We had a party planned for next week at the farm, to cut turkeys and stuff like that. I think we’ll continue with it, try to bring our Christmas spirit back, anyway,” said Mendieta. “We’ve got broken hearts, but that’s about it.”
