More Than Half a Million Farm Animals Have Died in Barn Fires in 2022
Quote:December 16, 2022
Washington, DC—More than 518,000 farm animals have perished in barn fires so far this year, pushing the death toll to more than 6.3 million since 2013, according to an Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) analysis released today. These devastating numbers, which likely do not even represent the full scale of the problem, serve as an urgent reminder to the industry to prioritize fire safety and prevention on farms.
Fire departments and municipalities are not required to report the number of animals killed in fires. AWI’s review of public records indicates that even departments that do submit fire incident reports to the US Fire Administration fail to acknowledge animal deaths, including in the most extreme cases involving hundreds of thousands of fatalities.
Barn fires impact a variety of farms—from hobby farms with a small number of animals to large commercial facilities housing tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of animals. As in previous years, the cause of most fires in 2022 was not conclusively determined. Many, however, are thought to have resulted from defective or improperly placed heating devices or, to a lesser degree, malfunctioning farming equipment.
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