An egg farm near the intersection of 110th Avenue and 21st Street was engulfed in flames Friday afternoon.
“There’s approximately 50 employees who work here,” said Brian Burch, the spokesperson for Konos Farm. “All are safe. All are accounted for and only very minor injuries to speak of.”
He added that their two barns had a total of 550,000 hens. 300,000 of them died in the fire.
He said that Konos Farm, which produces eggs under the Vande Bunte branch, is an egg-laying facility. They produce about 550,000 cage-free eggs every day. The eggs are sold at local stores like Meijer, Aldi and Spartan Foods.
Throughout the day, several nearby fire departments including Lee Township, Gobles, Alamo, Wayland, and Gun Plain helped Otsego and Allegan contain the fire. Burch said they had to bring in water from outside of Otsego because there weren’t any water sources in the area.
“Agriculture fires are always a challenge especially at a place like this,” Burch said. “We don’t have city water. We don’t have those same types of assets that we sometimes take for granted in city. So the responding communities are doing an amazing job of bringing water in.”
