Fire Kills 240,000 Chickens – $1M In Damages
on Dec 17, 2020
It was a sad Thursday morning for the Dade City chicken farm after two of their large chicken coops caught on fire and killed more than 240,000 chickens.
Tens of thousands of chickens are feared dead after a 2-alarm fire swept through Cal-Maine Foods in Dade City overnight. Three large barns caught fire. Each barn contained approximately 80,000 chickens. There is no word what started the fire, which is now under investigation. pic.twitter.com/WBG737vpBy
— Spectrum Bay News 9 (@BN9) December 17, 2020
The chicken farm is located in Florida and is known as the largest producer and distributor of shell eggs in the United States. They produce eggs for popular brands like Land O’ Lakes and Egg-Land’s Best and made up for 20 percent of all eggshells sold nationwide in 2020 (over 51 million chicken eggs).
Firefighters were called and arrived on the scene at around one in the morning to put out the fire. There were no fire hydrants within three miles, so firemen had to rely on bringing their own water to put out the flames. Fortunately, they were able to douse the fire even with several propane tanks exploding during the blaze.
Chicken Farm Fire Update: Pasco Fire Division Chief Shawn Whited said close to 250k chicken killed. “We are out in rural eastern Pasco County. There aren’t any hydrants out here, so we had to bring in tanker trucks.” https://t.co/xW3dhmuRbE pic.twitter.com/gAu5T5zm74
— Spectrum Bay News 9 (@BN9) December 17, 2020
Pasco Fire Rescue Chief of Operations Shawn Whited told Bay News 9, “We are out in the country. We’re having to use tanker trucks. These chicken coops are very large structures and there’s a lot of fire in there and the fire is deep into those buildings.”
Out of the eight large chicken farm coops, each holding anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 chickens, three caught on fire. Unfortunately, those three were damaged beyond repair so they had to be completely demolished to prevent flames from starting up again.
Aftermath of this morning’s massive farm fire in Dade City. 250,000 chickens were killed in three barns that burned down. Farm is owned by Cal-Maine Foods from Mississippi. State fire marshal is investigating the cause. @bn9 pic.twitter.com/ARFat8hp9c
— Tim Wronka (@TimWronka) December 17, 2020
Country Rebel gives a big shoutout to the Pasco Fire Rescue team and everyone involved for responding so quickly.
