A fire at a hog farm complex in London, Ohio killed about 6,000 pigs and produced a plume of smoke that could be seen for miles, according to Central Townships Joint Fire District Chief Brian Bennington. Bennington said the blaze did not injure people and that responders had to contend with sustained winds and limited water supplies that required extensive water-shuttle operations.
Bennington said the response involved multiple fire departments as the flames spread across the farm complex. He said two of five large agricultural buildings were “heavily involved in fire,” and he described the overall effort as taking five hours to bring the blaze under control.
He said winds of about 20 mph, with gusts reaching up to 35 mph, accelerated the fire’s spread. Because water supplies in the area were limited, Bennington said crews relied on water shuttle operations to support firefighting.
Bennington said about 1,500 hogs survived and were taken elsewhere. He also said the stored hog waste below the buildings was contained, with no concern for impacts on surrounding groundwater.
After the fire, an Associated Press reporter visited Fine Oak Farms a day later and saw smoke rising from the burned area. The reporter reported that a darkened structure was partially collapsed, with charred debris piled near metal silos where flames had ripped through, while other nearby buildings appeared largely intact.
The Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause and origin of the fire. Bennington said there is no suspicion of arson at this time.
Court and business records filed with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office show the business in Madison County, near the community of London—about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Columbus—was registered in 2017, and that Dave Heisler was named as its agent. Messages seeking comment were sent to Heisler and to others associated with the business, but a person identifying himself as a business operations manager declined to comment.
The Animal Welfare Institute said the Ohio incident fits a broader pattern of barn fires killing large numbers of animals. Allie Granger, a policy adviser for the institute, called the Ohio incident “a very horrific event” and said such events were “a little more common than most people think,” urging a thorough investigation.
The Animal Welfare Institute’s statistics compiled by the group reported that as of January more than 99,000 farm animals had been killed in U.S. barn fires this year, and that the vast majority were chickens killed in separate large barn fires in North Carolina and Georgia in January. The group said that before Thursday, three of the dozen barn fires recorded so far this year were in Ohio, killing 162 sheep, cows, horses and other animals.