A drama in Asten-Heusden: tens of thousands of chickens died there on Monday afternoon in a large barn fire on Bleekerweg. Not surprising, because the fire often spreads like mad in these types of stables. Cause? In many cases this is the controversial air washing system.
If you collect tens of thousands of animals in one place, you can imagine that there is a strong smell coming from it. The air washer has been developed to keep the unpleasant odor and pollutants such as ammonia within the walls. This system extracts the air through pipes and then ‘washes’ it in a separate room before it is led outside.
“When the fire reaches such an air duct, there is no stopping it.”
Such an installation is now mandatory for almost all stables in order to meet all strict environmental requirements. But there has been a lot of talk about the air scrubbers among the farmers for years. For example, all the extra technology would actually increase the risk of fire. For example, due to a short circuit or because rats eat the cables of the system.
And if a fire actually develops, the flames will spread throughout the barn in no time thanks to the extraction. Or as Linda Janssen of Producers Organization Pig Farming (POV) said in 2019 after a large barn fire in Biezenmortel: “When the fire reaches the air duct, there is no stopping it.” And with that, another measure – spreading animals over different fire compartments – no longer makes sense in one fell swoop.
“Too little attention is paid to the safety of animals in the ever-expanding stables.”
These voices have now also reached politicians. Especially after the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) released a critical report on the risks of the system last March. “Too little attention is paid to the fire safety of animals in the increasingly larger stables,” said chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem at the time.
He called on outgoing minister Carola Schouten to draw up the rules for the fire safety of stables. Later that year, she decided that from now on all electrical equipment in stables must be checked annually. She also promised to investigate which technological innovations could actually worsen safety. She also hinted at the air washers.
The follow-up to that research is now up to the plate of her successor, the new agriculture minister Henk Staghouwer. Remarkably enough, he wrote to the House of Representatives last week that the number of barn fires in 2021 has actually fallen to 35, resulting in 6915 dead animals. A year earlier, there were 54. Then 108,794 animals died in the fire.
In this video you can see how fire can spread quickly through air scrubbers:
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