It took firefighters more than 10 hours to put out a fire at a barn in western P.E.I. on Saturday.

The fire destroyed the barn at a dairy farm owned by Tony and Christine Myers in Abram-Village.

There were cows inside at the time of the blaze but they all escaped.

The intense heat from burning hay stored inside, and soaring temperatures outside, caused two firefighters to require treatment for heat exhaustion.

Members of the Wellington Fire Department say it is the biggest blaze in the area since the local rink burned. Six neighbouring departments — from Alberton, Oleary, Lennox Island, Tyne Valley, Miscouche and Summerside — provided mutual aid and hauled more than 227,000 litres of water to the farm.

The dairy farm was only recently purchased by the Myers family.