LEWISTON, Utah, April 24, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — It could take another day or two before the Utah Fire Marshal’s Office determines the cause of the Tuesday afternoon barn fire that killed 120,000 chickens.
Cache County Fire Marshal Jason Winn shared what is known so far with Gephardt Daily.
The call came to dispatch at about 4 p.m., and Lewiston Fire crews arrived at the scene, the Oakdell Egg Farm, and saw the engulfed 20,000-square-foot barn. They determined they needed a lot more help.
“They had fire showing through the roof, so they put in a second, third and fourth alarm, which brought roughly 60 firefighters to the scene,” Winn said.
The site had access to just one hydrant, which wasn’t providing nearly enough water. So crews called for a tanker task force.
About seven water trucks were brought in to deliver full water tanks, then they began to cycle, Winn said, “to ship water in and dump it in a tank, and go get more and come back and dump it.”
The burning chicken barn, one of seven or eight chicken barns on the property, was made of heavy timber enclosed by sheets of tin.
“One of our struggles was trying to get water on the fire,” Winn said. “The water would run off the tin. We had to try and find holes to get the water to the timber, and we couldn’t get good access to put it out. The water kept running off.”
Firefighters decided to take a defensive approach, in hopes of saving the other barns and structures on the property.
“So that’s what we did. We took a defensive strategy. We tried, but we couldn’t put the fire out, so we tried to keep it from jumping to another building.”
The first barn, containing the 120,000 chickens, burned pretty much to the ground, but the other buildings and laying hens were saved, Winn said. No firefighters or farm staff members were injured.
Besides Lewiston Fire crews, agencies sending help came from Clarkston, Newton, Trenton, Richmond, Logan and Hyrum in Utah, Winn said. Franklin County (Idaho) also sent two trucks.
It will probably take another day or two to determine the cause of the fire, he said, and he hesitated to guess at the cost of the loss of the livestock and barn.
“But it would have to be more than a million dollars, I would guess.”
