UPDATE: Crews battle blaze at Mountaire Farms in Selbyville; cause of fire identified

Dozens of Mountaire Farm employees watched and waited as crews worked around the clock to contain a fire that broke out at Mountaire's Chicken Plant in Selbyville.

"The fire stayed mostly outside and didn't impact the building inside too much but they're still assessing those issues," said Selbyville Fire Departmant Chief Matthew Sliwa.

Officials say when they arrived at the plant around 3:40 Monday afternoon, fire and heavy black smoke were coming out of the building.

"What we're getting from the Mountaire engineering staff is that they think the transformer had exploded and started the fire," said Sliwa.

More than eight different fire departments responded to the blaze, and were quickly able to get the fire under control.

"My guys the surrounding departments everybody did an excellent job to be able to hold a fire of that magnitude to that location took a lot of coordinated work by the guys that got on scene first," said Sliwa.

Crews say the plant sustained significant damage from the fire.

"Where the transformers are at this time is unusable at this point in time. The one transformer is going to be a total loss but it looks like the one next to it might be unaffected but we won't know until we get the power back on in that area," said Sliwa.

Officials add the plant will not be operating during the day or night Tuesday as crews continue to survey the area.

"A plant like this, there's a lot of different chemicals, ammonia being the big concern so they want to check and make sure there was in fact no ammonia leaks at this point in time we don't have any release of ammonia," said Sliwa.

They also say there were no injuries reported, and that crews will be working as swiftly as possible to get the plant back up and running again so employees can get back to work.

"They say we're volunteers but the Delmarva volunteers are the best so we were able to keep this damage to a minimum and hopefully get the plant back up and running and get these people back to work as quick as possible," said Sliwa.

47 ABC reached out to Mountaire Officials for comment– but they're unable to speak on the incident at this time. As for the chickens, officials say they'll most likely be taken to another Mountaire facility for the time being.  

On Tuesday, the Delaware Fire Marshal says a malfunction in a power transformer caused the fire. Officials say the fire began around 3:45 PM, on Monday, and resulted in estimated $500,000 in damages.