By Carolyn Starks
The Chicago Tribune
MARENGO, Ill. — Awakened by a stranger pounding on his front door, Jason Sierpien rushed into his burning barn near Marengo early Monday, trying to rescue dozens of animals that star in his traveling petting zoo.
He swiftly ushered some goats and pigs to safety, then freed a few horses trapped behind a locked gate. But he was unable to save many of the guaranteed crowd pleasers — as many as 45 animals, including chicks, goats, lambs and piglets.
“Some people think it’s just animals,” Sierpien said, “but this is our family.”
Sierpien’s A Zoo to You is a family-run business he and his wife, Amy, started in 2000 on their farm about 1 mile north of Marengo on Illinois Highway 23. It offers a range of animal attractions, including pony rides, petting zoos for children’s parties, encounters with more exotic animals, rent-a-reindeer displays and white draft horses that are in demand for Indian weddings.
The fire broke out in the animal nursery of a 28-foot-tall, barrack-shaped barn with an arched roof. The nursery included wooden stables, where new mothers who recently gave birth had more shelter to take care of their offspring.
Sierpien said he believes that the cause of the fire was an electrical problem, but fire officials said they were still investigating.
Firefighters said it took 90 minutes to extinguish the flames.
“Part of the barn was engulfed. Some of the animals were already out,” said Battalion Chief Bill Weiss of the Marengo Fire Protection District. “As soon as it was safe to get in there, we went in to extinguish the flames and get more out of there.”
Two veterinarians treated animals at the scene, and Sierpien took some of them into his two-story home to help them recover. A neighbor is keeping some of the piglets in her home office.
On Monday afternoon, smoke was still smoldering on the heavily damaged side of the barn, while on the side that remained largely intact, a group of goats and their babies were eating. Llamas and horses grazed in a nearby field.
The family had 200 animals, including a wallaby and a fennec, a small desert fox with large ears, that are used at birthday parties or festivals. The loss of the animals will not affect scheduled events, Sierpien said, but it has affected his family.
It was heartbreaking to see the injured animals, which meant more to his family than just a part of their business, Sierpien said. All of the animals had names, and his young son helped bottle-feed some of them.
“A lot of them have lived in our house,” Sierpien said.
Things could have been much worse if it weren’t for Guy Seemann, Sierpien said.
Seemann, who lives nearby, was on his way to work around 6 a.m. when he noticed an unusual glow in the barn and stopped. Seemann, an electrician, turned around to check it out further and called 911 after realizing it was burning.
“There were no lights on in the house, so I thought this guy has got to be sleeping and somebody has to get him up,” said Seemann, who helped move some of the animals to safety. “He did what he could do, but there was just so much smoke, it was hard to get in there.”
Sierpien said he called Seemann to thank him.