Maryland fire investigators have ruled out arson after a one-alarm fire killed 20,000 chickens in a Wicomico County chicken house but don’t have a suspected cause yet.

According to a news release from the Maryland Office of the State Fire Marshal, no humans were injured in the Friday blaze that caused an estimated $175,000 in losses for owners Mark and Brittany Pugh of Willards. It took 45 volunteer firefighters half an hour to control the blaze on the 9200 block of New Hope Road. The couple declined to comment for this story.

The photo included in the fire marshal’s release shows the former 20,000-square-foot facility completely flattened. The release says the facility didn’t have a smoke or fire alarm or a sprinkler system, which aren’t required for poultry houses, according to Dr. Nathaniel Tablante, a retired veterinarian and poultry health specialist at the University of Maryland Extension.

Matt Stevens, deputy chief of the Office of the State Fire Marshal and regional commander for the office’s lower Eastern Shore operations, said the farm had more than five other chicken houses in operation, but the fire left the chicken house in question a complete loss. The chickens killed in the fire were about 6 weeks old and raised for meat production, he said.

That age means they were likely headed for slaughter soon, according to Tablante, who said chickens raised for meat are usually sent to slaughterhouses between 6 and 7 weeks depending on the company.

The exact cause of the fire remains elusive. Though witnesses believe it started on the side of the facility closest to its utility room, Stevens said investigators don’t have enough evidence to prove that.

“When it’s [a structure that is] all consumed, it makes it difficult to determine a point of origin,” Stevens said. However, in cases like these, he said the extreme level of damage can obscure the exact point of origin, or even an area of origin.

“There is no evidence of an intentionally set fire,” according to Stevens, which is where he said the investigation will likely end. The Lower Eastern region of the fire marshal’s office said via email the case is still under investigation as of Tuesday afternoon.

Amick Farms, which has a contract with the farm, had representatives at the scene of the fire, according to Stevens. Amick Farms could not be immediately reached for comment.

Stevens said chicken house fires are “not that common,” at least within his office’s jurisdiction of Wicomico, Somerset and Dorchester counties. But they’re not unheard of in Maryland either: In June, a similar incident killed 28,000 birds in Federalsburg, in Caroline County. A fire last year in Pocomoke City in Worcester County killed 18,000 chickens. And in 2011, a staggering 285,000 chickens died in their Cecil County coop during a fire.

Insurance company Nationwide says its data for the “poultry-rich Delmarva region,” which includes areas within Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, show the older a chicken house is, the more likely it is to have a devastating fire. It’s unknown how old the Willards’ chicken house was before Friday’s fire.

“Although the cause of a fire is often documented as ‘unknown,’ data show that the primary drivers for total-loss fires for poultry houses are a condition of the electrical or heating/gas systems,” Nationwide says on its website.

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