FARINA, Ill. — At least 20 different fire departments were working Wednesday night to put out a massive fire at Marion County, Illinois, chicken farm.
The fire was still smoldering Thursday morning, and firefighters said they expect to continue battling the flames well into the day.
The fire began around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Farina Farms Inc., a poultry farm along Highway 37.
Marion County Sheriff Kevin Cripps described the fire as "humongous" and said multiple buildings spanning 200-300 yards long were on fire.
Cripps said the buildings contained well over 1 million chickens.
“I was in the field right behind it," Dash Jahraus said. "I could feel the heat from my truck.”
The smoke flume could be seen throughout southern Illinois. It even showed up on the Doppler radar, Cripps said.
“People were saying they could see it all the way at the Indiana border and over in the Belleville/O’Fallon area," Jahraus said. "In Salem, it was entirely covered with smoke. You couldn’t see any sky.”
"As everyone probably knows, the chicken farm is on fire," the neighboring city of Kinmundy said in a Facebook post, adding that firefighters were trucking in water from both Farina and Kinmundy and asking for residents to conserve water.
The Beckemeyer Volunteer Fire Department hauled just under 30,000 gallons of water almost 45 miles from its station to the fire, Chief Luke Baker said. The department was just one of 20 to 30 tankers hauling water to the scene.
"You can imagine the amount of water and manpower that was being used," Baker said. "... Requests like this are made by MABAS (Mutual Aid Box Alarm System) to bring resources in from different areas so as not to deplete a whole county's fire departments in one place. All in all, it was a massive effort by these first responders to being it under control."
"Local ag suppliers sprung into action and got some of their farmers, and their equipment, to haul water and make sure there was every resource that we could have there," State Rep. Blaine Wilhour said. "With that it certainly could've been worse.”
The Illinois State Fire Marshall is currently investigating the cause of the fire.
No injuries were reported.
“We’ll be there for folks, that’s for sure," Rep. Wilhour said. "That’s what we do around here. We’re working very hard to make sure that we get any roadblocks out of the way to get them up and going.”
Farina Farms is owned by Indiana-based Wabash Valley Produce, which acquired the site from Kroger in 1985 along with a nearby feed mill. The current hen and pullet complexes were built in 2016.
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