The devastating fire in a chicken shed just outside Assen is deeply affecting the owner of the poultry farm. For the second time in six years, he saw tens of thousands of animals die on his farm in a sea of flames.
Cars drive back and forth in the yard of chicken farmer Jarno Jansen from Graswijk, the day after the fire. That is often the case, because people from the area regularly visit him to pick up boxes full of fresh eggs. Now the parking lot at the farm is full of police cars and vans from the detective,
Jansen himself is busy with it. The detectives are still investigating how the fire could have started and are asking him question after question. Meanwhile, the insurance company tries to call him to get an idea of the damage. A police drone flies back and forth, taking pictures of the blackened remains of the chicken shed.
At around 4:30 pm last night, an acquaintance of the chicken farmer discovered that smoke was coming from the chicken shed. Jansen himself was not at home at the time. “He phoned me and said it was completely wrong. I knew then that there would be no stopping it: once such a stable burns, you can’t stop it. I’ve been happy for a long time that I wasn’t in the stable.”
Not much later, the flames burst from the roof of the barn several meters high. Jansen’s family and employees were unharmed, but all 28,500 chickens that were inside were killed.
Miraculously, a second barn with 15,000 chickens and the assembly building next to it was able to save the fire brigade. Jansen: “Thanks to their good performance, worse has been spared. But it is terrible to see what is now in the stable. Those poor animals.”
The chicken farmer’s story continues below the video