From flames to restoration in 19 days

ST. CHARLES, Minn. — On March 31, Jacob and Barbara Schmucker’s herd returned to a rebuilt barn less than three weeks after a fire destroyed the original barn.

“I still hear that (fire) in my sleep, crackling, popping,” Jacob Schmucker said.

The Schmuckers milk by hand 16 organic cows, with a capacity for 22, alongside their seven children near St. Charles. They farm 127 owned and rented acres, raising corn, soybeans, oats, hay and pasture. In addition to their milking herd, they have a poultry barn with a capacity of 10,000 laying hens. The Schmuckers also own 40 horses and colts, for their own use and to train and sell as well.

The Schmuckers, who are members of the Amish community, had a barn raising eight days after the fire, with 122 men from four communities working to rebuild.

“It gives you a mood lift to have all these people come,” Schmucker said. “It makes you feel really small because everybody comes and works for you, but at the same time, it makes you feel good that you’re part of something like that. It’s part of our culture.”

The fire started Wednesday, March 12, around 8:25 a.m. after milking. It started in the diesel engine room next to the milkhouse, which powered the bulk tank cooling mechanism.

Schmucker was in the milk house when he discovered the fire and tried to put it out through the window from the milk house to the engine room.

“I just jerked open the bulk tank and started dipping milk out through that window,” Schmucker said. “(The fire) went down, but then I heard it burning upstairs, and it was already in the hay mow.”

Schmucker and his family moved the 50 head of cows, youngstock, horses and foals out of the barn in about five minutes with the help of their blue-heeler dogs barking and chasing the animals. Schmucker said the dogs were vital as the smoke got to the point where they could not see.

“We had just enough time to get everything out,” Schmucker said. “By that time, it was high time to be out of there.”

The fire went wild in the hay mow, helped along by a southeast wind.

“You’re thinking, ‘No, this can’t be happening to us,’ but it is,” Schmucker said. “It’s your worst nightmare come true.”

The fire department arrived and kept water on all three siloes and was able to save them, including the silo built into the middle of the barn. A nearby grain bin was half full of oats, and the Schmuckers discovered oats burning inside a week after the fire. They discarded three gravity boxes of grain to end the fire.

Schmucker and his family moved to the farm and started dairy farming less than a year ago, in May 2024. After moving in, they also built a chicken facility and doubled their flock. Previously, they had crop farmed and raised 5,000 laying hens.

“That was pretty tough to move here, buy the farm and then lose a barn right away, but now we’re going to have a nice barn,” Schmucker said. “It’ll work out.”

The barn had housed the farm’s water supply. A water tank in the hay mow served as a water tower-style system to supply water to the dairy and horse barn and the chicken barn. Within two hours of the fire, a neighbor had a tanker truck of water at the farm for the chickens.

The Schmuckers let the barn burn for two days. On Friday, March 14, Schmucker said people were in his yard wanting to get the rubble cleaned up and to have a construction crew get the new barn’s blocks laid by Saturday night.

“I had thought we would maybe wait a week or so … but people came and went to work and said, ‘Let’s go.’” Schmucker said.

They used the old barn’s footings and by Saturday evening, March 16, all 1,800 blocks were laid.

The next week they hosted a barn raising. The barn was already built up to the hay mow floor when they started, and by the end of the day, most of the roof was on, 50% of the steel side wall was in place and some cement had been poured.

Schmucker said he has helped at similar Amish community events before, but never one with this many people.

“That was something to see,” Schmucker said. “There were three guys managing people. That’s all they did.”

Besides rebuilding, the Schmuckers were assisted in other ways by their Amish community and their non-Amish neighbors. Schmucker said many people dropped off supplies for the barn, like 5-gallon buckets, wheelbarrows and pitchforks. They received enough food to feed the barn raising crew and their families and for the Schmuckers to eat for three weeks without hardly having to cook.

On March 31, the cows were back in the new barn. The cows had been housed at two neighbors’ farms and the Schmuckers had helped with chores.

The rebuilt barn is similar to the old one. The Schmuckers reversed the side of the barn the cows are on, making the cow side closest to the milk house instead of the horse side. The Schmuckers also plan to rebuild the engine room for cooling, separate and away from the barn, to reduce fire hazard.

“Hopefully it never happens again, but if it does, it would at least give us a little time,” Schmucker said. “If we would have had 15 minutes, we would have got (this fire).”

The Schmuckers are thankful for the community support.

“Without that there’s no way we could get to this point in this short of time; absolutely impossible,” Schmucker said. “It’s a good thing.”