A fire tore through a large commercial farm in western Ohio this week that was housing hundreds of thousands of chickens raised to lay eggs, dealing another blow to a state egg industry that was already reeling from the effects of an Avian influenza outbreak.
Fire and state officials did not specify how many birds died in the fire.
Ohio is one of the largest egg-farming states in the nation, producing some 10 billion eggs a year, according to a coalition of state farmers. The onset of avian influenza in the United States in 2022 has killed off millions of egg-laying chickens, raising prices and leading to nationwide shortages.
Most of those outbreaks took place in western Ohio, including in Darke County, the site of the fire.
Firefighters were dispatched after 6 a.m. on Tuesday to New Madison Pullets, on the outskirts of the village of New Paris near the Indiana border, said Chief Robert Cook of the New Madison Volunteer Fire Department.
Firefighters from four counties in Ohio and two counties in Indiana deployed equipment and personnel, working through bitter cold, snow and thick smoke as they struggled to tap ice-covered natural water sources, Chief Cook said in an interview.
By the time the fire was extinguished, at about 1 p.m. Tuesday, it had destroyed a main building that was holding thousands of chickens.
“It was a total loss,” he said.
The barn where the fire occurred had a permit to hold 280,000 pullets, Brian Baldridge, the director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture, said on Friday. Pullets are chicks that are raised until they are 16- to 18-weeks-old, and then are transferred to other facilities as egg-laying hens. Mr. Baldridge said he did not know how many were lost in the blaze.
“This farm is one of Ohio’s largest in regards to total pullets housed,” he said in an email.
The company had a permit to operate a “concentrated animal feeding facility,” Mr. Baldridge said, referring to operations that house large numbers of birds. An employee at New Madison Pullets declined to comment. It was not clear from official statements how many other buildings were damaged at the farm.
Mark Whittaker, the Darke County sheriff, said avian influenza was an “absolutely significant” concern in his county and in Mercer County to the north, which are home to some of the state’s largest poultry farms.
The fire at the Ohio farm “is adding insult to injury in this scenario to the poultry producers in the area,” Sheriff Whittaker said. “We have millions of birds in this county.”
Sheriff Whittaker, whose office sent up a drone to help investigators during the fire, said he had “preliminary” information that the cause was not suspicious.
The fire and explosions bureau of the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s office is investigating, Jarrod Clay, a spokesman, said in an email on Thursday.
“The dollar loss is anticipated to be high,” Mr. Clay said.
The bird flu made its way to the United States in 2022 after it was detected in Canada. It has driven a recent shortage of eggs that has driven prices up, brought attention to any developments affecting the supply and prompted Waffle House to add an egg surcharge.
As of the first week of February, there had been 23 avian influenza outbreaks this year in Arizona, California, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Indiana and Washington, causing the deaths of 21.1 million birds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
