'Massive' hay shed fire cost Canterbury company up to $1.5m

By Joe Shaw of RNZ

A Canterbury business owner is absolutely gutted after more than half of his winter feed went up in flames.

A fire destroyed more than 12,000 bales of hay as it tore through two sheds at Quigley Contracting in Winslow, about 10 kilometres southwest of Ashburton, on 14 May.

Dozens of firefighters tackled the blaze and work continued on operations for four days until what was left of the bales was cleared, covered and capped in a large pit.

• Likely cause of fire

Quigley Contracting owner Andrew Quigley said it was the most significant loss to the business since it started 22 years ago.

He first received a call about the fire shortly before midnight on 14 May.

"It was massive," he said.

"It's sort of scary - those first few hours, just not knowing whether it is going to spread or another puff of wind is going to come up, and the risk to residential properties around us was probably the biggest concern.

"We were trying to save every bit of stock we could, and we were moving bales of straw around with our own machinery, just trying to eliminate the risk of further spread.

"It was a very, very scary experience."

The fire started in one shed and spread to the other shed after burning for 30 to 40 minutes, Quigley said.

The damage cost the business between $1.2 milllion and $1.5 million.

"It's a significant and huge loss to us," he said.

"A lot of the product was pre-sold across New Zealand to different customers. It's probably 50 to 60 percent of our stock that we had on hand lost."

Quigley was grateful other contractors and farmers had come forward with offers of feed after the fire.

"We're working through that at the moment, but it's looking like we'll have enough product to be able to look after our customers," he said.

It was not the first time a fire had hit his business with the same site affected four years ago, Quigley said.

"It started in a shed, sort of similar. Starting at around two-and-a-half thousand bales and spread," he said.

After that fire, water curtains were installed in the sheds and had prevented this fire from being worse.

"Those water curtains in the shed worked well; we saved... two sheds that probably would've gone up as well," Quigley said.

"So obviously I'm happy with the improvements we've made, but absolutely gutted with all the systems and processes we've put in place that similar events happened."

While the cause of the fire had not been determined, Quigley said he suspected it was caused by spontaneous combustion, which was the cause of fire four years ago.

Fire and Emergency said the investigation was ongoing.