CARNATION, Wash. - A barn fire killed six purebred sheep and destroyed a couple's irreplaceable guitars and family scrapbooks and three vehicles, but it could have been worse.
Diane Pagel and her husband, Jeff Freeman, thought they had lost as many as 20 prized sheep when their barn about three miles north of town burned down because of an electrical short-circuit early Thursday morning.
Then they discovered all but six sheep had been herded to safety by Kodiak, their Great Pyrenees guard dog.
"Sheep will go to where it is safe, and for them that was the barn," Pagel said, "but apparently Kodiak got them out. He was the last one out of the barn because hair has been burned on his back legs and back."
Her biggest loss was Granny, a 14-year-old toothless ewe who required special food.
"She was the Eve of my herd," said Pagel, a
Federal Aviation Administration aerospace engineer.
The fire was reported shortly before 5 a.m PST and the barn was filled with smoke and flames when firefighters arrived, Eastside Fire and Rescue Chief Lee A. Soptich said. Fire crews had to go more than a mile for water and struggled to cool a 500-gallon propane tank outside the barn and keep it from exploding, Soptich said.
"If the tank had caught on fire, it would have acted like a bomb," Freeman said.
Losses include all the original words and music of his two bands; his four guitars, a 1957 Telecaster and three custom-made instruments; a Nissan pickup, Subaru Legacy station wagon and Mazda Navajo; several bicycles, and equipment for Freeman's work as a painting contractor.
"I lost my childhood," Freeman said. "That's where I kept all my personal scrapbooks and pictures. They can't be replaced."
