Richard, sure glad you were able to save the animals.
And for anyone who hasn't seen a spontaneous combustion fire, hay is certainly known for it, but there are other things that can cause it, too. I may have posted this before, but it's only luck that kept me from burning my house down several years ago. The house had a two car garage and one hot, summer Saturday afternoon, I changed oil and filters in both cars, and was using an old white t-shirt for a grease rag, so by the time I got through, it was pretty oily with dirty oil. We had a special rack, with a lid, that held a plastic garbage bag, so when I finished, I threw the old t-shirt in that garbage bag. Then I went in the house, took a shower, put on clean clothes, and we went out to eat. When we got home and entered the garage, the odor of something burning scared the dickens out of me and I ran through the house, looking for the source, and realized the strongest odor was in the garage. I raised the lid on the garbage bag rack and found that my wife had dropped a paper sack full of garbage on top of the old t-shirt and that old white t-shirt was charred a dark brown, smoking a bit, and too hot for me to pick up. I figure in just a few minutes it would have burst into flames. Needless to say, ever since then, greasy or oily rags are either stored in an airtight metal container OR spread out or hung up where they get plenty of air.
