Photo by Kratka Photography
Majority of victims were cage-free hens
Washington, DC—More than 1.6 million farm animals, including nearly 1.3 million cage-free hens, have perished in potentially preventable barn fires so far this year, according to an Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) analysis of media reports released today. The 2020 tally of farm animal deaths from barn fires is the highest annual total since AWI began tracking barn fires in 2013 and is more than triple the number reported last year.
Since 2017, barn fires have taken the lives of approximately 4 million farm animals in the United States; the vast majority were egg-laying hens.
Though these numbers are shocking, they do not represent the full scale of the tragedy. The number of fires and animal deaths in recent years likely exceeds totals reported by the media, since municipalities are not generally required to report barn fires, and some companies decline to release the information to the public.