Chicken House In Whaleyville Bursts Into Flames - WMDT 47 News - Delmarva's Choice

WHALEYVILLE, Md. - Intense flames engulf a chicken farm on Old Ocean City Road in Whaleyville. WMDT was on the scene as firefighters battled the blaze and has more now from the family left picking up the pieces.

Katie Massey tells us her family was just about to eat dinner when they noticed flames behind their home. There was like huge clouds of black smoke coming out of the chicken house. Me and my fiance and my sister all ran down there because we were so worried about it. We didn't want dad to get caught in anything because we knew there was a propane tank down there, and if the wind blew just right, it could have blown everything up," she said.

The chicken house was full of hay and the fire spread very quickly. "Chicken house fires are very unpredictable, because they're open and they're long and the way they're constructed - especially the older ones. A fire that gets a handle on a chicken house can travel very fast from one end to the other, so it's a very dangerous fire for firemen," Berlin fireman Mark Brown said.

Thankfully no one was injured and the animals were all safe. "I was scared because so many times a horse will get near - it's just the smoke and they can die from the smoke -inhaling it," 16-year-old Danielle Massey said.

The call to 911 was made at 5:40PM, and within a matter of minutes, fire crews from Berlin, Pittsville, Willards and other surrounding areas were on the scene. It took them no more than 15 to 20 minutes to get the blaze under control. "If you look at the smoke, it's a white colored smoke, which indicates that the fire is pretty well under control. That's moisture smoke. When we first got here, the smoke was really black and brown," fireman Brown said.

We're told about $2,000 to $3,000 worth of hay was lost. "It's just got several hundreds and hundreds of dollars of hay just put away in it for the winter - that was all of our animals' hay for the winter," Danielle Massey said.

The Fire Marshall's office is still investigating the cause of the blaze.