Firefighters extinguish Santa Rosa horse ranch fire

<p>Firefighters finally extinguished a blaze Tuesday night that erupted nearly 24 hours earlier at a horse ranch west of Santa Rosa, reducing a mountain of hay bales into a pile of smoldering rubble.</p><p>The 65 tons of hay originally sent flames towering into the sky, melted an aluminium pull barn to the ground, and struck fear into the ranch owners and their neighbors.</p><p>Firefighters extinguished the last of the fire at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and left behind a pile still steaming in the drizzling rain, Rincon Valley Fire Capt. Fred Leuenberger said.</p><p>For much of the day, an orange glow radiated from the rubble as firefighters kept a watchful eye on the smoldering hay.</p><p>“Hay burns that long. It’s baled tight and stacked close together,” said ranch owner Bill Buchmann. “You basically have to let it burn up.”</p><p>Firefighters continued on Tuesday night to investigate the cause of the fire, which they contained to the pull barn.</p><p>The fire erupted at Sky Tree Ranch, a horse boarding and riding lesson facility west of Fulton Road. No people or animals were hurt in the blaze, according to firefighters.</p><p>Neighbors reported the blaze at about 9:35 p.m. Monday.</p><p>“We looked outside and saw a fire, but we initially thought it was a neighbor burning manure,” said Renee Moorehouse, who was visiting the ranch Monday night. “Then we realized it was actually the barn, and we all went running over there.”</p><p>Moorehouse, Buchmann and others ran to the burning barn.</p><p>“By the time we got there, basically, all the hay is totally engulfed,” Buchmann said.</p><p>The fire destroyed the pull barn, five horse stalls inside, and about $9,000 worth of hay, Buchmann said.</p><p>Neighbors helped Buchmann save four horse trailers located next to the burning barn, he said.</p><p>“It was very intense heat,” he added.</p><p>While firefighters spent nearly a day tending the blaze, Leuenberger remembered even longer-burning property fires.</p><p>“The infamous tire fire of 1992 was about 48 hours — that was off Airport Boulevard,” he said. “That one really burned.”</p>