By Joe Killian
News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
Copyright 2006 News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
All Rights Reserved
JULIAN, N.C. — It took 60 firefighters more than two hours to combat a blaze at a large barn fire housing 15,000 chickens Wednesday afternoon — and one firefighter was hospitalized with heat exhaustion.
Guilford County fire and EMS workers responded to the fire call down the unpaved road about 2:30 p.m., said Alan Perdue, Guilford County director of emergency services.
"It's always a challenge to get water out in rural areas, where there are no fire hydrants," Perdue said. "We brought in water in several trucks from local lakes, where we have predetermined water points."
Perdue did not release the name of the hospitalized firefighter but said his condition was not life-threatening.
The structure, owned by Allen Family Foods based in Seaford, Del., was totaled by the blaze. It wasn't clear late Wednesday afternoon how many chickens had been killed. Hundreds of surviving chickens ran free as EMS workers worked to put out the fire.
Perdue said the cause of the fire wasn't yet clear but an investigation is under way. He said large electric fans inside the barn could have contributed to the spread of the fire, which involved at least half the structure.
"Any time you introduce more air to a fire it helps to spread the fire," Perdue said. "But we don't yet know how it started, just that it started at the eastern end of the building."
