Fire razes poultry farm
Up to 50,000 chickens are dead after a fire gutted a poultry farm in West Auckland.
A smouldering heap of corrugated iron was all that was left of Stoney Creek Farm in Opanuku Rd in Henderson yesterday.
The fire had started in the early hours of the morning and fire crews arrived after 1.30am to find three two-storey hatcheries ‘‘well involved’’ in flames.
A spokesman for Fire and Emergency NZ said the barns were each about 150m by 50m, and all were full of birds.
Henderson senior fire station officer Jason Orchard said 50,000 chickens had died in the blaze.
Only 1000 birds, which were in a separate barn that was not touched by the flames, survived.
‘‘It’s obviously a traumatic event for everyone concerned, because so many thousands of chickens perished in this fire,’’ Orchard said yesterday.
Firefighters had to contend with dramatic scenes.
There were multiple large explosions throughout the night as each barn had its own diesel tank, which all went up in flames, Orchard said.
A fire investigator had been called to determine the cause. The owner was off site at the time of the blaze.
This is the second major fire in West Auckland in recent days. On Tuesday morning, Nola’s Orchard in Glen Eden was gutted by a blaze.