[Zuriel]

**When I was a child, my grandfather’s barn burned down Lightning strike? Or hay brought in before totally dry? (Sorry for your Grandfather!)**

I was around 10 years old when a big barn, a little over a mile from our farm, burned down because of ‘tough’ hay. The farmhand said you could feel the heat rising up from the haystack when stacking those square bales. But the farmer that owned the place insisted it was dry enough to bale.

Several firetrucks showed up, but the roof was still intact. So the blaze was able to engulf the inside, despite the water being thrown at it at each end. The haystack smoldered for several days after the wood was all gone.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

There have been a couple of times that I have seen barns burning and wondered if it was wet hay. One of them had fire trucks and crowds, the other I saw from a restricted access highway at a good distance so there was no getting closer to see what was happening.

Now it seems them mostly roll the bales and wrap them in plastic and leave them in the field to collect and store somewhere else later.