Tobacco Barn Fires Are in Decline in Kentucky

[briarfriar]

From the Murray Ledger & Times in Kentucky:

With fall on the horizon, tobacco barns all over western Kentucky will be curing dark-fired tobacco over the coming weeks, so Calloway County Fire-Rescue is reminding the public how to tell the difference between normal farm operations and an actual emergency.

At this time of year, farmers that grow dark-fired tobacco – which is primarily used for chewing and pipe tobacco – hang the harvested plants in barns and cure them by exposing them to fire inside. This gives the tobacco its aroma, color and flavor.

Read all about it here.

 

[woodsroad]

A lot of tobacco barns are now all metal, and many are purpose-designed prefabs.

 

[ClinchKnot]

A fellow pipe smoker I know ditched Portland, OR for Kentucky a few years ago and now lives right down the road from a tobacco curing barn.

This time of year he sits on his porch in the morning with his coffee and enjoys the smell of hickory smoke drifting across his property.

 

[kcghost]

Having only one barn fire a year hardly counts as a crisis unless the barn is yours. They do need to get a handle on all the false calls they get all year though.

 

[Pipke]

In my area we get too many calls for a structure fire in the spring, when it is just one of the many sugar shacks boiling maple sap. Invariably the calls come from transplants from urban areas. The ones that move out here for the charm, and slowly make everything illegal.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

In my area we get too many calls for a structure fire in the spring, when it is just one of the many sugar shacks boiling maple sap. Invariably the calls come from transplants from urban areas. The ones that move out here for the charm, and slowly make everything illegal.

Time to stop being so damned charming.

 

[pantsBoots]

A lot of tobacco barns are now all metal, and many are purpose-designed prefabs.

Still mostly wooden structures in northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky.

 

[Danimal92sport]

I felt that Southern KY and Southern IN was that way, too, when I lived there a few years ago - I only saw wood curing barns, but I didn’t see that many - I’m no expert.