‘The community comes

Windsor exhibition grounds open stables to horses threatened by wildfire

The owner of a Hammonds Plains horse stable forced to evacuate due to a wildfire says the Hants County Exhibition’s willingness to open its grounds meant “everything.”

Heidi Macinnes, owner of Restless Pines Farm, said the situation with the wildfire is “terrifying.” She said a couple of their boarders’ husbands are volunteer firefighters, and they started hearing in the mid-afternoon on Sunday that the wildfire was getting closer.

Macinnes said they were keeping an eye on wind maps and tracking the fire. She got everyone in her barn ready to gather their belongings, because there was a strong chance they would have to evacuate.

She started hitching five available horse trailers to trucks so they’d be ready to start taking the horses to safety. She called friends who own another six horse trailers and asked them to help.

Macinnes then reached out to the management of the exhibition grounds in Windsor because she knew they had room for horses. She said officials were very accommodating, and that meant “everything” to her in the moment.

The exhibition had a horse show in Windsor that was just wrapping up, and Macinnes was invited to start hauling her equines to the site of North America’s oldest agricultural exhibition.

The quickly advancing fire was about nine kilometres away when Macinnes first started keeping an eye on it. Within a half hour, it was seven kilometres away. As they began loading horses on trailers, ashes began landing in the driveway.

“It was moving very rapidly,” Macinnes said. “At that rate, I thought I’ve got to go now. I thought that I’d have time to do two loads myself.”

She said she could take six horses, but they had 57 on the property, which presented a logistical challenge. Macinnes turned to social media to ask if other people had trailers available, “and everybody rallied.”

It took 30 minutes from the time the first horse was loaded until the last one was on a trailer and on its way to safety. She looked back and described the sight as a “convoy” of horse trailers on Highway 101.

“The equestrian community is phenomenal,” Macinnes said on Monday.

She said she had just come back to Windsor after returning home to check on things and the wind had shifted away from the farm. Everything was intact and she didn’t detect any smoke. Macinnes said they would keep the horses in Windsor until the winds die down, perhaps for a couple of days, just to be safe.

She said they have a competition in Chester this week. Macinnes has reached out to the facility and learned its stalls are ready. Considering she has many horses to move over the next couple of days, Macinnes said she might start hauling some of them to Chester during the afternoon on Monday.

‘VERY SCARY’ FOR HORSE OWNERS

Horse owner Lauren Barrington said it’s “very scary” to have a horse that means a lot to you threatened by an emergency such as a wildfire. They were keeping a close eye on the situation from Restless Pines from the moment they could see smoke rising in the distance.

She said only an hour passed between the time an evacuation notice went out and the last horse was loaded on a trailer. Barrington said most of the horses from Restless Pines were taken to Windsor, although some are staying at other facilities for the time being.

“It really shows how the community comes together to help out. We showed up here (in Windsor), stalls were ready and bedded with water ready and hay,” Barrington said.

The Chester Basin resident said people have been donating hay bales and shavings and other items for their horses.

Barrington said this isn’t the first time the Hants County Exhibition has opened its gates to horse owners in need, and she wasn’t surprised by the generous offer.

She said she is aware of other situations in the Hammonds Plains area where horses had to be set free to escape the encroaching fire and smoke. Barrington said she couldn’t speak for those owners, but, if a trailer wasn’t available, she would rather have her horse turned loose in such a scenario. Horses are “fight or flight” animals, she said, that will get away from dangers such as smoke.

MORE STALLS AVAILABLE

Windsor Agricultural Society facility manager Barb Rockwell said they were quick to say “yes” when Macinnis reached out. The exhibition then posted on Facebook that it had barns available for evacuated horses.

She said the scene at the exhibition grounds when the horses started arriving around 6:30 p.m. on Sunday was “heartwarming.”

“People just grabbed their trucks and their horse trailers and down they went and loaded up,” Rockwell said. “People were coming with buckets, lead shanks, hay, everything they would need just started appearing.”

She said the yard was full of people unloading horse trailers and wanting to help. It was a similar situation on Monday with people calling and messaging with offers to assist. She said the equestrian community is very tight knit and when an emergency happens, “they’re Maritimers. That’s the bottom line. What can we do to help.”

Rockwell said the Hants County Exhibition grounds had 135 horses stabled there when the Maritime Barrel Racing Association visited the previous weekend, so they have the capacity to help more horse owners facing evacuation if necessary.

For more information, contact the Windsor Agricultural Society at 902-7902377 or 902-798-0000; email hantscountyex@eastlink.ca or visit the Hants County Exhibition Facebook page.