Massive fire destroys Lexington stockyard, many businesses

[Recursion]

Source: Washington Post

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A massive fire destroyed a 70-year-old beef cattle auction business in Lexington on Saturday, churning up a plume of thick, black smoke that darkened the skies for miles as the wind-whipped flames consumed several nearby businesses.

No one was injured in the fire that destroyed seven acres of the stockyards operated by the Blue Grass Livestock Marketing Group. But Chief Operating Officer Jim Akers said he did not see how the 20 beef cattle in the facility could have survived.

Firefighters were alerted to the fire at 2:20 p.m. and quickly called for backup as the smoke billowed through the streets near busy Leestown Road. Fire officials warned anyone living within a half mile of the fire to stay inside and turn off their heating and air conditioning units to keep the smoke out of their homes.

At least 120 firefighters battled the blaze for several hours Saturday afternoon in a wooden structure that Interim Fire Chief Harold Hoskins compared to “a standing lumber yard.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/massive-fire-destroys-lexington-stockyard-many-businesses/2016/01/30/ffd6bc90-c7c3-11e5-b933-31c93021392a_story.html

[Kali]

1. looks like sales will continue at other yards

http://www.bgstockyards.com/

[gvstn]

3. I'm not big on internet grammar police

But considering such a tragedy you would hope they would know the difference between accepting and excepting before posting their ad.

[Kali]

4. actually I think they may indeed mean accepting -

accepting animals on Sunday for the sales on Monday and Tuesday. but to be fair to you, yes a lot of these rural things tend to have some grammar issues, especially the dreaded plural apostrophe! ex: "a big load of cow's will be going through this sale"

oh yeah and one of my favorites, sale instead of sell - we are going to sale some cows on Monday.

[Sunlei]

9. Blue Grass Livestock Marketing group, has been using more online video cattle sales rather then

these old school stockyards for large sales.

Cuts out the costs of large ranches having to ship/train transport cattle to a stockyard just to sell them.

[Kali]

10. video sales from the producer's location

is usually easier on the animals too, but even a lot of these small auction barns are doing video as well, for their regular weekly sales.

[Sunlei]

11. little barns probably have to get online or go out of business. Even that old stockyard only had 20.

A '20 head of cattle day' doesn't even support daily pay of the 6 on site employees for that huge stockyard.

[Kali]

12. that 20 may not have been the sale numbers

they could be early arrivals or stuff that didn't sell the previous week, or even stuff the owner was feeding/keeping for some other reason.

I didn't look further at this location, but usually stuff arrives the day of and the day before a sale. Sometimes due to other factors a load will come in earlier.

my experience is there are plenty of cattle and individual sellers, but the numbers of buyers has consolidated. most animals going through a weekly sale barn are culls and shippers that will go to a feedlot, not other cattle raisers. so the small group of buyers travel (or do the videos) from sale to sale, making up pen-loads for their companies.

production/bull/breed sales are when you tend to have a lot more buyers in the house - individuals buying to replace or increase their own herds. or dispersal sales when somebody goes out of business for whatever reason.

[Sunlei]

13. yes, the beef industry, even dairy industry have consolidated into huge Corps. Today 3,000

Today a 3,000 herd of dairy cattle is not unusual. Embryo implant many of the dairy herd with beef breeds and a Corp can produce milk and more valuable beef calves.

I still wonder if that stockyard fire was arson, was it well insured? but probably just an accident those places are ancient wood and hay tinderbox. One employee drops a ciggie in the wrong place and it goes up in flames.

[Kali]

14. it is a possibility

insurance or sabotage, or maybe somebody welding. hay plus old wood plus smokers is a bad combo for sure.

[A Little Weird]

2. I could see the smoke from Frankfort

I didn't know what it was from.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. I bet it smelled like someone was cooking steaks.

[passiveporcupine]

6. Mmm BBQ

Sorry...gallows humor again.

I do hope somehow the cattle got out, but probably not.

[Sunlei]

7. old dry wood burns, wonder if insurance arson was involved?. only 20 cattle there, poor things.

[Recursion]

8. Not like their scheduled fate was much better

But, yeah, I do feel bad for the cattle.