Three thousand pigs died in a stable fire in Reusel on Tuesday. Insurers have previously called for more measures by farmers and the government to prevent fires in stables. The fire in Reusel is not an isolated incident. Last year, 44,667 animals died in stable fires in Brabant. This is evident from figures from the Association of Insurers, analyzed by Omroep Brabant.
For example, there should be a maximum number of animals per barn section and barns should be inspected for fire safety every year. Those rules are in the making, but have not yet been implemented.
43,000 chickens
The Brabant figures are largely colored by a very large fire. In April 2022, 43,000 chickens died in a fire in two chicken houses in Asten-Heusden. The other animal victims occurred in four other fires. A year earlier, there were no stable fires with dead animals in our province, according to the Dutch Association of Insurers.
Nationally, 130,000 animals died last year due to a fire in the barn where they were kept. That is slightly more than in previous years. The increase is due to seven fires at farms with chickens. “One stable fire in the poultry sector can cause the number of animal victims to rise sharply in one go”, the Dutch Association of Insurers explains.
In 2021 there were 35 stable fires nationwide. Only 6915 animals died, an average of 198 per fire. There were no fires at poultry farms then. In 2020, the insurers registered 54 barn fires with a total of 108,794 dead animals, an average of 2015 at a time.
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Examination
According to farmers’ and market gardeners’ organization LTO, livestock farmers are already doing a lot to improve fire safety on their farms. Poultry farming, pig farming and veal farming have already included a mandatory electrical inspection in their quality systems. Since 2012, LTO has been working with, among others, the Animal Protection and the Netherlands Fire Brigade to improve fire safety in stables. The aim is to help farmers, for example, quickly discover a fire, prevent short circuits and act quickly to limit the consequences of a barn fire.
“Every barn fire is terrible and is one too many,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture. “We are working hard on a reinforced approach to stable fires.” The mandatory fire safety inspection is part of this. The aim of these measures is to halve the number of fires in 2026 compared to 2020. The increase last year underlines the importance of this, according to the ministry.
LTO calls it ‘unfortunate’ that the number of stable fires has increased again. “It shows that despite all the efforts of livestock farmers, we are not there yet.”
Tens of thousands of chickens died in the fire in Asten.
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