Pennsylvania Farmer Saves 32 Calves as Barn Burns

ROSS TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Dairy farmer Mark Verbyla spotted the raging flames Thursday night, and it was a race against time.

His 32 calves had a chance to survive. His historic barn did not.

Fighting heavy smoke and spreading fire, the 61-year-old rushed into the burning barn to unleash each calf from its stall, one by one.

"It was so smoky, you could barely see. There was fire falling from the ceiling. Time wasn't on my side." Verbyla recalled Friday at his Mooretown Road farm. "I was moving as fast as I could. When your adrenaline is pumping, you can move real fast. If I was a minute later, I wouldn't have gotten them out of there."

With the calves safely outside, Verbyla could do little but watch the landmark barn burn to the ground, despite the efforts of 10 fire companies from the Sweet Valley area.

Verbyla said the barn, which was built in 1887 and refurbished 10 years ago, has won awards in the dairy industry and was frequently photographed by passers-by.

"You hate to see an old barn go because there's so few good ones around anymore," Verbyla said.

The barn was used to house the farm's 32 calves, or heifers, that were being raised to one day become dairy cows. Most of the calves were moved to another farm his family runs in Benton, and a family friend is caring for a few. Verbyla's 65 milk-producing cows and one bull were in another barn and unaffected.

In addition to losing the barn, Verbyla noted he lost 5,000 bales of hay he harvested and had stored inside. He said the hay was worth about $20,000.

The hay proved to make it much more difficult to fight the intense blaze, said Sweet Valley Assistant Fire Chief John Oley.

"It fueled the fire," Oley said. "It was an old barn with lots of fuel."

Oley said the fire remains under investigation, but it will be difficult to determine a cause because the barn was leveled. Verbyla said hay is the "lifeblood of a farm," used to feed the milk-producing cows. Hay was already in short supply because the summer of 2011 was terrible for growing and drying it, he said. Now, he plans to purchase hay and transfer some from other farms he has in Huntington Township and Benton.

"It would be one thing to lose it in May. But to lose it in February is a bitter pill to swallow. It's going to put a crimp on me," he said.

Verbyla, who runs the farm with his wife, Gail, said he has farm insurance and hopes he'll have enough coverage to build a new barn for the calves and a new hay storage unit.

"At 61, I don't want to borrow a half-million dollars to build a barn," he said.

The farm, which is a supplier of milk to Lehigh Valley Dairy Farms, has been in Verbyla's family since 1939. He took over the reigns from his father in 1993. Verbyla spent his entire life working on the farm, besides 1969 and 1970 when he served as an Army infantryman in the Vietnam War.

So, no matter how he does it, he's going to rebound, rebuild and keep farming. The 16-hour-per-day job is all he knows.

"This is what we do. It's how we make a living. At my age, it's not like I'm going to switch careers," Verbyla said. "When I'm done, it won't be a dairy farm any more. That's the way most farms are going."

Copyright 2012 - The Citizens' Voice, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service