Putnam County Fire Department firefighters were called to put out a fire at Rose Acres Egg Farm yesterday.
Fire Chief Thomas McClain said a fire broke out in one of the chicken houses.
“There were over 200,000 chickens in there, but we didn’t cook a single one of them,” he quipped. “No chickens were harmed in the process.”
McClain explained that the fire was in the ventilation system rather than in the main part of the building. He said they were able to extinguish much of the fire by spraying water from the outside of the building, but they had to send a small crew inside and up to the ventilation system to attack the source of the flames directly.
“It was not a burning inferno or anything like that,” he clarified. “And they didn’t have to evacuate any of the chickens, although a few of them acted like they wanted to be evacuated.”
The call came in at 6:10 p.m., and firefighters of Station 9 on Union Chapel Road were the first to arrive on scene. But due to the size of the building and the fire, five “career-staffed” fire trucks and the ladder truck also responded to assist. Several volunteer firefighters were also on hand to help.
After the fire and hot spots were all extinguished, the firefighters left the scene at 8:48 p.m., according to McClain.
While they were at Rose Acres on Reids Road in the northern part of the county, another fire call came in from the southern side on Lisa Woods Lane off Pea Ridge Road. McClain said the Eatonton Fire Department responded to that fire as part of the county-city mutual aid agreement.
That fire was a woods fire caused by a controlled burn that got out of control.
“Which is why we stress the importance of conducting a control burn correctly,” McClain said. “We appreciate the city helping us.”
After they were finished at the egg farm, several of the county fire trucks and firefighters went over to the woods fire on the south side, he said.