BIGELOW, Minn. -- A barn was destroyed and 26 3-week-old bottle calves were killed in a fire June 11, about a mile south of the Lake Bella dam near the Minnesota-Iowa line.
The blaze was reported at 8:45 p.m. by a neighbor to the farm in Horton Township, Iowa. Bigelow Fire Chief Paul Hohensee says the biggest challenge was getting a water source to fight the blaze.
"Where the farm place was located, it's a lot of dead miles," he says. "We had to travel practically three miles just to get to a main gravel road."
Water was pumped from Bigelow and a portable pump set up at the Lake Bella dam to draw water.
Rodney Markus, who lives on the site and feeds calves for a Minnesota dairy, was not home at the time. He had about 300 calves on the site, but the only ones lost were those housed in the barn.
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Hohensee says he suspects the fire was caused by an electrical issue, based on where the blaze started.
"It was an older barn, remodeled years ago," he says.
