Chicken coop fire lights up the night; no birds or humans hurt

<strong>HYDE PARK—</strong> A steady stream of emergency lights lit up the eastern foothills as the sun went down in the valley Sunday night.

Firefighters were aided by rain Sunday in Hyde Park. Photo by Paul Christiansen.

“We had an officer out on regular patrol,” said Chief Kim Hawkes of the North Park Police Department. “He observed what he though was a structural fire — a shed engulfed in flames — at 875 E. 200 South.”

The patrol officer paged out to local dispatch, Hawkes said, and called for reinforcements from the Smithfield Fire Department and Cache County Emergency Medical Services Authority.

One neighbor, Karla Axtell, said seeing the approaching fleet of emergency response vehicles made her feel uneasy at first.

“We saw the fire trucks coming up the hill but they began to slow down, like they were going to turn,” she said. “That made me quite anxious because our home nearly burned down a few years back in 2005.”

The situation could have been much worse, said Smithfield Assistant Fire Chief Jeremy Hunt.

“Yes, the structure did burn all the way down to the ground,” Hunt said. “But it was a small structure to begin with. Basically it was a 3-foot by 3-foot chicken coop, 4 feet tall with a tin roof. And it was about 50 feet from any other structures.”

<em><a href=”http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=9260″ target=”_blank”>Continue to full article</a></em>

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!