Over 20,000 chickens lost in the blaze. Cause of fire under investigation.
Fire officials are investigating the cause of a chicken house fire that broke out just before 7 p.m. Wednesday at a farm off of Hardman Road north of Clarkesville.
“We came home and we noticed there was smoke coming out of the back end of the chicken house,” says Martha Copeland who owns the farm with her husband Larry, a former Habersham County commissioner. “He (Larry) rushed down here and while he was doing that, I was calling 911.”
Copeland says the fire spread quickly through the 40 x 400 foot structure. “By the time I got down here it was almost to the end (of the chicken house).”
The family managed to save several hundred chickens but Copeland estimates over 20,000 birds died in the fire.
A total loss
Firefighters from Habersham County Emergency Services, Clarkesville, and Lee Arrendale Correctional Institute (L.A.C.I.) along with an EMS Med Unit and Habersham Sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene.
“Personnel were directed for a Defensive Attack due to amount of fire encountered upon arrival of first units,” says Habersham Emergency Services Director Chad Black. “At this time a cause is undetermined. Just prior a storm moved through this area and a lightning can’t be ruled out at the present time.”
Firefighters were unable to save the burning chicken house but they did keep the fire from spreading to a nearby chicken house. They remained on the scene late into the night putting out hot spots.
The loss from the fire is estimated at $300,000.
It’s a loss the Copelands have suffered before. In their decades of farming, they’ve lost three chicken houses, one of them in the same location as the one that was destroyed Wednesday.
“It’s not a pleasant thing to have to go through,” says Copeland. She says the loss is insured. “Thank the Lord nobody was hurt,” her daughter Rhonda Card says. Copeland agrees. “That’s what I’m thankful for,” she says. “Everybody’s ok. Nobody was hurt.”
