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It’s almost become a familiar scene, fires in Puslinch, Mount Forest, London and yesterday in Park Hill Ontario have left eerily similar images, a barn in ruins, and the knowledge that many animals are dead inside. All remain under investigation, but have created some concern over barn safety.

Gayle Ecker is the director of Equine Guelph, an organization on the campus of Guelph University that supports the owners of horses. “We need to train ourselves into making that risk go way down.”

They are offering an online course to help educate owners about some of the lesser known risks, and a course for first responders to help them work more efficiently when trying to get animals out. When a barn fire does happen there’s a very limited amount of time to get any livestock out so Equine Guelph developed a safety checklist to ensure that the focus is on prevention.

It doesn’t cost anything to request a safety inspection, and the fire department is required to conduct the inspection once it has been requested.