BERKLEY (WWJ) — Three chickens have been saved after a fire broke out in a small, outdoor chicken coop in Berkley Thursday afternoon.
Around 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 16 police officers and firefighters responded to reports of smoke coming from the side of a house on Oxford Road, in the area of Coolidge and Catalpa, according to Detective Lt. Andrew Hadfield with the Berkley Department of Public Safety.
The first responding officer saw the smoke and when he went behind the home he noticed it was coming from the chicken coop.
Hadfield said the officer quickly opened the latch and pulled three chickens from the coop. They were the only three chickens in the coop, according to Hadfield.
Fire crews were able to quickly knock down the fire, preventing it from spreading to the home, which was only a few feet away.
“This chicken coop was one to two feet away from the house, so had it continued, it would’ve gotten to the house and caused a lot more damage,” Hadfield told WWJ Newsradio 950’s Luke Sloan. “It was contained to just the coop itself, but had it gone undetected, it could have been a huge problem.”
Hadfield said the fire is believed to have been started by a small heater in the coop meant to keep the chickens warm.
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