Two horses — Chip Shot and Big Red — are the only survivors of a barn fire that killed 23 Tennessee Walking Horses in the early morning hours Tuesday in Limestone County.

“I don’t know how those two got out,” said Keith Nance, manager of Nance Stables at Crane Farms, located on Thach Road between Clem and Mooresville roads. “We thought both of them were gone.

“Chip Shot was outside the barn in the yard,” Nance said. “He didn’t have a singed hair on him. Big Red came running up and he had some singed hair.”

Several other horses that had been in the pasture when the fire broke out also survived. They were not gaited show horses like the others, he said.

Nance, who lost six of his own Tennessee Walkers in the blaze, said he was devastated. He was at his home in Rogersville — 45 minutes away — when he got the call.

“It’s like getting a phone call that your teenager has been in a wreck and has died,” he said. “It’s something you cannot imagine unless you’ve experienced it.”

No one stays overnight at the stables, which Nance said amounts to a barn in a pasture.

Eight owners hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, to Mississippi owned the 23 equine that perished, Nance said, noting they consider them beloved pets.

A passerby noticed the blaze about 2:30 a.m. and called 911, he said.

Firefighters from Oak Grove-Thach Volunteer Fire Department rushed to the scene.

“When I got there, it (the barn) was fully involved,” said Fire Chief Cody Wood.

The conflagration spread rapidly through the barn and was so hot they could not get in to get horses out, said both Nance and Wood.

Nance hoped the horses succumbed to smoke and not fire.

About 10 to 12 Oak Grove firefighters battled the blaze along with firefighters from Elkmont and Ardmore volunteer fire departments. They were on the scene for three to three and a half hours, Wood said.

The horses, some of them award-winners, were worth anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 each, Nance said, adding he did not believe many of the owners insured their horses.

It takes anywhere from six months to two years to train Tennessee Walkers to perform the four-beat running walk that makes them famous, Nance said.

Whether the property owner Charles Crane will build a new barn is unknown. At this point, Nance said everyone involved is just trying to comprehend the loss.

“I’ve heard of it happening, and I’ve seen it happen to others, but I never thought it would happen,” he said.

The cause of the fire has not been determined. An investigator from the Alabama Fire Marshal’s Office was expected to visit the site Tuesday evening to try to make a determination, he said.

“We will have to get the roof off of them (the horses) so they can take a look at it,” Nance said, noting the fire caused the barn’s roof to collapse onto the animals.

Once that is done, the county will help bury them.