LITTLETON – Twenty-three sheep and three horses were killed Tuesday morning when fire swept through a barn on Campbell Road.

Owner Jeff Campbell was not home when the fire broke out. He said he had been gone only about 20 minutes to plow snow at his shop down the road when his son Matthew, 14, first spotted the fire from the house, about 200 feet east of the barn

Campbell said his son saw smoke coming from the north end of the barn, and at first thought it might have been snow blowing off the roof.

The fire was reported to the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Department shortly after 9:30 a.m. The massive building, which also contained about 600 bales of hay, as well as wood shavings used for animal bedding, was all but leveled within a half-hour.

By that time, all that remained was the cement foundation of the former potato house and twisted metal roofing that lay in the rubble.

Littleton and Monticello firefighters responded to the call and could do little more than watch as the flames, whipped by winds gusting to more than 20 mph, according to the National Weather Service Forecasting Center in Caribou, raced through the building, showering the area with embers.

Campbell, who after the fire was busy making arrangements to house six rams and a half-dozen beef cattle that were outside the barn at the time the fire broke out, said he had no idea how the fire might have started.

He said there were no heating devices being used, and no one had been in the barn since about 7 a.m. after the chores were finished.

The sheep that were killed, Campbell said, were ewes, many of which were ready to lamb and others that already had.

“You feel so helpless when you know there are animals in there and there’s nothing you can do to help them,” he said.

He said he was insured for his loss.

About 20 firefighters from Littleton and Monticello responded to the fire call. They left about an hour after they arrived, though a few stayed behind to help Campbell tend his surviving animals until they could be loaded into livestock trailers to be taken to another location.

“We’ve got everything under cover for now,” Campbell said Tuesday afternoon.