WITCH CREEK — A fire leveled a 25,000-square-foot commercial structure containing roughly 70,000 chickens on July 18 at an egg ranch in the rural eastern highlands of San Diego County, according to fire and law enforcement officials.
The blaze erupted at about 5:30 p.m. in a large henhouse at Demler Brothers Pine Hill Egg Ranch in the 25800 block of state Route 78 in the rural Witch Creek community northeast of Ramona.
The burning structure was one in a row of 10 identical poultry buildings on the 362-acre property, which houses upward of 2 million white leghorn pullets, or young hens, according to county records.
Kimberly King, media relations director at the Sheriff’s Department, told The Coast News that none of the chickens within the barn survived. It remains unknown how many animals were injured or perished in the fire.
The lead firefighting agency, San Diego County Fire Protection District, consisting of several county-owned fire stations staffed with CalFire personnel, requested mutual aid from all surrounding fire departments to help extinguish the fire.
Upon firefighters’ arrival at the scene, Cal Fire Capt. Mike Cornette told The Coast News that the building was fully involved in flames. Due to concerns about the fire spreading to adjacent buildings — each containing tens of thousands of egg-laying hens — and nearby vegetation, fire officials upgraded the status to wildfire, prompting air tankers and water-dropping helicopters to help ground crews battle the flames.
Cornette said firefighters kept the fire isolated to the structure where it originated and declared it contained at approximately 6:37 p.m. No injuries or fatalities were reported.
Officials estimate the fire caused roughly $2 million in damage. Cornette said that by containing the fire to the original building, crews prevented millions of dollars in additional losses.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Bomb/Arson Unit is investigating the cause of the blaze. A spokesperson said there were no signs the fire was suspicious, but no other information was available.
In 2022, Demler Brothers applied for a permit to build a 16,200-square-foot poultry manure processing facility on the 362-acre site to handle roughly 750 tons of manure produced weekly from its egg ranch operations. While manure is known to spontaneously combust, Cornette said that, to his knowledge, the manure wasn’t near the building and did not contribute to the fire.
A fire erupted at an egg ranch in Ramona, possibly killing thousands of hens. The 25,000 square-foot building is fully involved, and firefighters are in defensive attack to keep flames from spreading, according to @CALFIRESANDIEGO. #EggIC pic.twitter.com/JMqBMCeYe6
— Malik Earnest (@MalikEarnest) July 19, 2024
Members of Direct Action Everywhere, a global network of animal rights activists, observed the fire from a nearby location and questioned why San Diego County Animal Services personnel were not at the scene to help evacuate chickens from neighboring barns.
“Animals are not prioritized in emergencies like this. Factory farms cram thousands or tens of thousands of animals into industrial sheds, making emergency evacuation incredibly difficult,” said DxE Lead Organizer Almira Tanner in a statement. “We need to start treating these animals as the feeling beings we know they are rather than as commodities that can be risked and sacrificed.”
County Animal Services did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The Pine Hill Egg Ranch has been the subject of public controversy over the past few years. In 2022, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a cease-and-desist order to Demler Brothers for unlawfully discharging contaminated wastewater and stormwater on the ranch and pullet farm, turning the water in nearby Santa Teresa Valley Creek a “foul-smelling, opaque, brownish-red color and frothy.”
The Coast News wire services contributed to this report.