The official cause of a fire that destroyed a pig barn west of Lanigan, Sask., March 31 cannot be determined, said Dave Needham, emergency service officer for Emergency Management and Fire Safety in Saskatoon.
OlySky owned the barn where approximately 3,500 young pigs died, mainly from smoke inhalation.
Humboldt-Lanigan RCMP and the Lanigan Fire Department arrived shortly after 6 p.m. March 31. Smoke was coming out of the eves of the barn and fire soon followed.
Needham said the fire started in the southeast corner of the metal clad barn, built about 1995, where there’s an electrically operated ventilation fan and a self automated feeding system.
“If any one of them seized up, that certainly could have caused the fire and that’s really the only credible sources of ignition in that corner where the fire started,” he said.
