FARMINGTON — The community response to the loss of an historic barn and stable at Knowlton Corner Farm to fire Thursday has amazed the owners.

“They’ve come in droves, sometimes we don’t even know them,” Arlene Messelli said Friday as she watched another truck pull up with blankets and two large round bales of hay.

The driver was a woman who had received help from farm owners Messelli and Robert Govoni 10 years ago when her horse was injured.

“You always pay it forward,” Michelle Baker, a horse rescuer, said, as she explained how horse rescuers from across Maine and nationally — thanks to Facebook — were seeking ways to help.

Gift certificates have been set up at local farm supply stores. Delivery of a lot more hay is on its way, Baker told Messelli.

“You’ve done a lot of good for the community,” Baker said, when Messelli expressed her appreciation. “I didn’t know people knew,” Messelli said in response.

Other local horse and farm owners have pitched in, bringing hay, grain, horse tack, blankets and even water buckets for the approximately 18 horses still on the farm, Messelli said. Along with training and lessons, the farm boards as many as 30 horses at a time. The numbers vary. Some of the horses belong to the couple, some are boarders.

Everything for the horses was in the barn, including a year’s supply of hay, about 3,500 bales. There isn’t even a rope left to lead a horse back, she said.

Gone also is the newly expanded bakery on the side of the barn set to open next week. The couple work with many individuals with physical and psychiatric needs. Part of the reason for the expansion was to provide a place for them to experience a “cooking-therapy” as they helped prepare tasty treats, she said.

Leftover produce from the farm gardens go to local food banks and the couple do a lot for the animal shelter. They hold a haunted-barn fundraiser each year, said friends and neighbors Paul and Melinda Ripa, who own Blue Mountain Quarter Farm.

Ripa, a member of  both the local Farm Bureau and State Farm Bureau Board of Directors, said these organizations are ready to help. He spent time Thursday making calls.

“For any fellow horse owner, help is available,” he said. While the barn was insured, the hay and horse equipment was not, he said.

Locally, Pam Harnden, president of the Farm Bureau, is preparing donation baskets to be placed in area stores, he said.

The help is much appreciated by the couple who were dealing as best they could with their loss.

“The worst part for me was getting up this morning and the barn wasn’t there,” Messelli said.

When the couple were wakened by people knocking on their windows Thursday morning, Messelli sat up in bed and said the sky was just a red blaze.

“The heat was unbearable,” Govoni said. “When we came out, the heat singed our hair. It was a rain shower of fire and embers.”

The fire departments did such a job, he said. “They wanted us out of the attached house. They didn’t think they could save it but they did.”

Ripa, a retired deputy fire chief with 31 years experience in Newport, R.I., couldn’t voice enough accolades for the work of the local fire departments.

“The towns protected by these dedicated people are fortunate to have such competent people. I watched what they did and I’m in awe,” he said. “Responding in those conditions … high winds, cold temperatures, shuttling water to such a large fire …  it’s a firefighter’s worst nightmare and they did it with the highest degree of professionalism,” he said.

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