WESTVILLE, Ind. – Quick response to a burning cattle truck by police officers with fire extinguishers is credited for none of the cows being seriously injured. The cows were headed to a slaughterhouse in Chicago at the time of the fire.

“The back of the trailer was fully engulfed in flames getting real close to the cattle inside,” said LaPorte County Sheriff’s Deputy Andy Hynek.

The back eight tires on both sides of a two-level trailer caught fire Nov. 18, apparently from heat generated by the brakes locking up, said Coolspring Township Assistant Fire Chief Warren Smith.

According to Indiana State Police, the driver, westbound on the Indiana Toll Road about 4 a.m., pulled over and stopped on the shoulder of the four-lane highway near Westville, about 15 miles south of Lake Michigan.

Hynek said he and two other police officers from Indiana State Police and Westville with fire extinguishers tried dousing the flames as the 37 cows inside the trailer became increasingly restless. The cows were separated from the flames by a metal wall containing holes for ventilation.

Hynek said the hair on the hides of some cows started being singed from flames shooting through the holes. “They were pretty freaked out. They were stomping and rocking back and forth trying to get away,” he said.

The officers were trying to drive back the flames when the tanks on their extinguishers ran dry. Luckily, that’s when firefighters arrived and put out the flames in 10-15 minutes.

Smith said the fire was hot enough to cause some melting of the aluminum trailer at the back end.

There was also fire damage to the trailer’s fiberglass roof toward the rear, he said.

According to Indiana State Police, none of the cows were injured. They were raised on a farm in Shipshewana, about 60 miles east from where the fire broke out.

Smith said the compartment directly above the eight burning double-axle tires contained no cows. “It could have been a whole lot worse,” he said.

Police said about a dozen of the cows were off loaded onto a trailer brought to the scene by a local farmer.

That allowed a tow truck to drag the burned trailer to a nearby parking lot to begin the process of looking over the animals and possibly resuming the trip to the slaughterhouse, police said.

Police said both westbound lanes were closed for about 30 minutes to allow the trailer and the animals left inside to be taken to the parking lot.

Bill Field, a farm safety expert at Purdue University, said the cows probably survived because of the officers combating the flames until firefighters showed up.

Field said heavy smoke and flames typical in tire fires could have been kept down enough to keep the cows from becoming totally unnerved or succumbing to smoke inhalation.

“If they can’t get out of there, those cows are just going to go nuts,” he said.

Field said cows packed into a trailer don’t have much room to move but while in a state of panic they can work their way into a position to trample each other because of their brute strength.

Cows injured during transport can also be costly for the rancher. Nowadays, Field said fewer slaughterhouses accept cows with broken limbs even if the meat on the rest of the carcass is still high quality, to avoid the risk for negative publicity in a more sensitive world.

He also said cows that don’t look injured once they get to the slaughterhouse might be rejected or sell for considerably less money. That’s because of damage physical contact can cause underneath the hide.

Field said bruises, as an example, are from blood vessels leaking which causes discoloration of the meat.

“There’s nothing wrong with that animal being processed for meat. It’s our perceptions of that. We’d rather bury an animal like that or have it disappear than be part of the food chain,” he said.