A fire at a barn killed 19 horses in Bartow County on Saturday morning, officials said.
Only a pony was spared when the flames broke out at the barn on Secretariat Road, Channel 2 Action News reported.
The barn was used to house show horses, the news station reported. The owner was out of town when the flames broke out. A man who lives in an apartment in the barn was the first to discover the blaze, Bartow Fire Marshal Gary Garland said.
“He woke up, smelled the smoke, and went out into the barn and saw flames in the building,” Garland told Channel 2.
Garland said wind from the south caused the fire to spread quickly, Channel 2 reported.
A neighbor tried to go back into the barn to save the horses, but it was too late, he added.
“The smoke and the heat was so intense that when they got there, there was nothing they could do,” he said.
Investigators aren’t sure what caused the fire, but it is believed to be accidental. The bodies of the horses were removed Monday morning and officials are trying to calculate the cost of the damage.
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