Experts examine cause of hog barn fire that killed two women

JASPER - A state fire marshal and insurance company investigators were on the scene of fatal fire in a hog barn three miles east of Jasper in far southwestern Minnesota, while co-workers and family members grieved the loss of two women who were cleaning the facility when the fire broke out.
Rock County Sheriff Evan Verbrugge said it would probably be a couple of weeks before any cause is possibly known as the fire marshal investigates.
But the sheriff and the hog barn complex owner New Horizon Farms of nearby Pipestone said the Monday morning fire was quick moving, although they don’t believe it was an explosion.
“There was no debris thrown around, so we don’t believe it was an explosion,” Verbrugge said.
Steve Perkins, a spokesperson for New Horizon, said the swine nursery building, which didn’t have any pigs in it as they had just been moved out, became engulfed in flames and burned almost to the ground in “a matter of minutes.”
That left almost no time for an escape by New Horizon employee Sharla Drew, 50, and a power washer contractor and young mother, Kristy Giesler, 31, both of Jasper.
“We are all just numb at this loss,” said Bob Taubert, managing partner of New Horizon. “At this time, the families, friends and our employees are our only concern. Buildings and livestock can be replaced but human life is irreplaceable.”
Perkins said the 130 employees of the 11,000-sow, farrow-to-finish swine company that is a leading swine producer in southwest Minnesota are like a big family and “this horrible tragedy is really affecting us all.”
Sharla Drew’s husband Bruce, also employed by New Horizon, was working in one of the other three barns on the site when the fire broke out.
He and other company workers and truckers were involved in loading pigs in one of the other buildings and contacted firefighters and the Jasper ambulance crew.
Taubert and Perkins said the five area fire departments that responded and the Jasper ambulance crew did “outstanding work” in keeping the fire from spreading to the other buildings.
“We only wish that his loss of life had not occurred,” Taubert said. “We mourn their loss and will never recover from it.”
It was the second fire for the company in two years.
At another company nursery site about seven miles to the southeast, a fire destroyed a barn and hundreds of pigs in early January 2014.
That was a totally different type of fire as Perkins said a heater or lighting problem was thought to be the cause of that fire that burned for many hours on a blustery mid-winter night.
Except for a few windstorms affecting roofs on a few other buildings, Perkins said the more than 20-year-old company hasn’t had any other real problems - and no other fires.
Perkins said the company has an extensive safety program, including infrared testing of electrical systems in all of the company’s barns.