NEW CASTLE —
A teary-eyed Dawn Reese stood wrapped in a black and white Aztec blanket, warding off yesterday’s bitter winds.
She watched dejectedly as firefighters from six departments withstood sub-freezing temperatures to hose down the remains of her parents’ two-story barn that dated back more than a century.
Smoke billowed from the smoldering rubble of the structure that had housed livestock, equipment and memories for the Slippery Rock Township family of Charles and Judy Tillia.
But Reese’s tears were more for the animals that did not escape the smoke and flames, and for her 16-year-old son, Jacob, whose eight pregnant goats perished in the blaze. They were his 4-H project.
Altogether, 13 goats died, along with an Appaloosa mare and a number of chickens and turkeys. Other surviving animals — chickens, goats and several other horses and chickens and a peacock — were in nearby fields.
Reese’s brother, Steve Tillia, said the family beagle had been tied outside of the barn, and it broke loose when the fire started and was yet to be found.
The fire started around 10 a.m. at the family’s Young Road farm. No one seemed to know how it ignited.
“I was at home, and my parents were on vacation, and I looked outside and saw all the smoke,” said Reese, who lives in a neighboring house.
“My son has been saving his money for his 4-H show goats,” she explained, and he recently went partnership with her father and bought quality goats for his project.
Jacob has been a member of the 4-H Neat Kids Goat Club for five years, and would show his goats in market goat competitions at the fair.
She said the family will have to “start from scratch” should they get more goats.
Reese said she called her son at school to break the bad news. Her parents were en route home from a trip.
The fire burned so fast that when firefighters got to the scene, “it was already on the ground,” said Slippery Rock Township assistant fire chief Jeff Morrison. They sprayed water to douse the remaining flames.
Also assisting were volunteer departments from Shenango, Scott, Taylor, South New Castle and Portersville. The state police fire marshal was summoned.
According to Steve Tillia, his parents’ house dates back to the 1800s and the barn was just as old. The Tillias moved there around 1975. Steve, now 46, was only 9 years old. Dawn was 2, and their brothers, Patrick and Chad Tillia, were 8 and 6.
All four children still live near their parents.
Steve’s mare that died in the fire was pregnant when he got her. Her foal was one of the surviving animals.
The fire also destroyed their father’s new tractor, tools, saddles, antique cow stanchions and old harnesses, Steve said, and he had just bought $300 worth of horse feed and other supplies.
“Our childhood was playing in the hayloft and building hay forts,” Steve reminisced. “All of the neighborhood kids would come and we’d play up in the hayloft. You can’t replace those memories.”
(Email: dmorris@ncnewsonline.com)
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Family members console each other at the scene of yesterday's barn fire along Young Road in Slippery Rock Township Gary Church
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