Our friend Kevin is visiting from the USA. We went off to Auch, the main town around here, to find a good source of square tube steel for welding.
On the way back Kevin pointed out an intense smoke plume. The smoke was very thick but the air around it was clear and not hazy. Kevin figured the smoke had just started.
We rounded a corner and there it was. The hay in some farmer’s barn had caught fire just a minute earlier.
So we pulled over and called 18 for the Pompiers. A couple of other cars stopped and one figured out the name of the farm and called the Pompiers back with the information.
Poor folk. Farms here are usually insured for hay fires like this (I know we are), but what a horrific thing to go through! This is why I leave the hay out a couple of weeks after baling it, longer if I think it could be a bit wet.
grasspunk.com 
Poor people! I bet that was all their hay from this year, too. Thanks for sharing that very valuable lesson about hay. We don’t make our own, but we’ll be sure we don’t get any brand new hay and put it in our barn!
Yikes! Something I fear but have never seen…