INVERNESS TOWNSHIP- A barn on Dotski Road is a total loss after it caught fire Thursday afternoon, with three county fire departments responding to battle the blaze.
"The barn was an about 8,000 square foot barn," said Inverness Fire Chief Dan Socha. "It was pretty old."
Inverness Fire Department had around 22 of their firemen and seven of their vehicles on scene to help fight the fire. Topinabee Fire Department and Alverno Fire Department were also called to help fight the fire and provided their tankers for support.
"The barn is a total loss," said Socha.
The fire departments were dispatched to the three alarm fire at 3:01 p.m. on Thursday, arriving at the fire within eight minutes of being called. When they arrived, the roof was already in on the whole barn.
The property had just been purchased by the former owner's grandson and the new owner's mother was at the home taking care of the original owner, the grandfather. She heard some noise and looked out the window and saw the whole barn was already in flames.
"She's the one that reported the fire," said Socha. "We were there almost four hours."
The fire department also had to call in E.F. Wilkinson and Sons Excavating to come in and pull the metal off the building, so the firemen could get to the flames.
"They come in on top, so we could fight the fire that was burning under, that the metal was keeping us from," said Socha.
No one was injured in the fire, but about 28 chickens and a boat that were in the barn and a small bus the owners had fixed up and a Polaris side by side ATV parked next to the structure were lost to the blaze.
"Thank God for the wind blowing the way it was because even though the wind was blowing away from the house, it still melted the siding on the house, on the garage," said Socha. "That's how hot it got. The house was probably 40-50 feet from the barn."
This Old House Pizza in Cheboygan supplied food to the firemen back at their station after they were done putting the fire out and cleaning up and getting their trucks cleaned up, free of charge.
"That was really nice of them," said Socha.
The Cheboygan County Life Support Systems ambulance was also on scene and the Cheboygan County Sheriff's Department also responded to the call.
The cause of the fire is still unknown and is under investigation at this time.