{"id":135545,"date":"2026-03-11T15:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/135545\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T15:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T15:57:11","slug":"firefighters-save-cattle-shed-in-western-berks-as-tractor-fire-sparks-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/135545\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefighters save cattle shed in western Berks as tractor fire sparks chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Firefighters saved a Marion Township <a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingeagle.com\/2026\/03\/10\/2-alarm-fire-damages-cow-barn-in-western-berks\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cattle shed<\/a> from going up in flames as young cows, sprung loose by neighbors, scurried around them.<\/p>\n<p>A neighbor, who happens to be a firefighter, saw smoke coming from the farm in the 200 block of School Road shortly before 2:30 p.m. Tuesday and alerted Marion Township Fire Company.<\/p>\n<p>Subsequent reports indicated a tractor was on fire, with flames spreading to the heifer shed. The tractor was under the overhang of the L-shaped, Virginia-style shed \u2014 a three-sided, open-front structure designed for livestock protection.<\/p>\n<p>Fire Chief Darryl Brubaker happened to be in the Marion station, which is not staffed during the daytime, as with most volunteer companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI promptly hit the road with an engine by myself, figuring there would be others to help out once I got there,\u201d Brubaker said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Fire crews at the scene of a fire on a Marion Township heifer farm in the 200 block of School Road on Tuesday. (COURTESY OF JOHN SILESKI)\" width=\"2048\" height=\"417\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/REG-L-MarionBarnFire-01.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"4303627\" \/><\/p>\n<p>COURTESY OF JOHN SILESKI<\/p>\n<p>Fire crews at the scene of a fire on a Marion Township heifer farm in the 200 block of School Road on Tuesday. (COURTESY OF JOHN SILESKI)<\/p>\n<p>The tractor, including the tires, was fully aflame, he said. Firefighters got water on the fire within seven minutes of the initial call.<\/p>\n<p>Neighbors freed the heifers \u2014 young female cows \u2014 from the shed, but chaos briefly ensued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were turning them loose, and they were running around us, but a bunch of neighbors who congregated quickly corralled them,\u201d Brubaker said.<\/p>\n<p>The cattle are raised by the farm for other farmers.<\/p>\n<p>A second alarm was struck to draw additional manpower, if needed.<\/p>\n<p>Brubaker said the tractor, which was old but functional, was a total loss, but the shed was only scorched on the outside.<\/p>\n<p>The cause of the fire was unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Firefighters saved a Marion Township cattle shed from going up in flames as young cows, sprung loose by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,21554,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-135545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-marion-township","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}