Fire and smoke from it killed tens of thousands of hens in two barns at an egg farm in north-central Iowa.
The fire at Centrum Valley Farms in Galt, Iowa started Sunday evening, March 30, 2014 at the farm on County Road C54 west of Highway 69 according to KIMT in Mason City.
Centrum Valley Farms is operated by members of the Boomsma and Dean families.
The fire was “significant” according Centrum Valley Farms Chief Operating Officer Steve Boomsma. He said the fire started after egg processing ended for the day in a barn housing about 75,000 egg-laying hens.
Those hens were all lost in the fire, and heavy smoke killed another flock of 75,000 hens in an adjacent barn.
“While we are terribly saddened by the loss of our flocks, we are very fortunate that no employees of our farms were injured in the fire,” Boomsma said.
He also said recent measures taken to improve fire protections between barns may have helped prevent the fire from spreading.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation.