Fire destroyed one of four brooder houses used in pheasant propagation at the Pennsylvania Game Commission's Loyalsock Game Farm near Montoursville, Lycoming County, yesterday afternoon. One employee was slightly injured when he attempted to use a fire extinguisher from the burning building to combat the fire.
The building was empty, as agency Game Farm workers had been preparing it to house about 18,000 day-old pheasant chicks that will hatch on May 29, so no animals were in the building at the time of the fire.
According to preliminary reports, it is believed that the fire was caused by an electrical short in a brooder heating unit, which is used to warm the building prior to placing the pheasant chicks inside and to keep the newly-hatched pheasants warm in the early stages of their lives. No damage estimates are available at this time, but the agency does plan to replace the building and equipment prior to next year's pheasant production season.
"We will raise these chicks at the Game Commission's nearby Northcentral Game Farm, and we do not anticipate any reduction in the agency's production goal of 100,000 pheasants for release prior and during the 2007 pheasant seasons," said Calvin W. DuBrock, Game Commission Bureau of Wildlife Management director, who oversees the pheasant propagation division.
On Aug. 1, 1934, the Game Commission opened the Loyalsock Game Farm, and its operations were dedicated for pheasant propagation. The brooder building lost in the fire was about 40-feet wide by 210-feet long, and was constructed in 1975.
