Blaze at HyLife barn kills 1,500 hogs

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This article was published 25/03/2015 (4073 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Approximately 1,500 hogs are dead after a fire razed a barn near Kola Tuesday night.

Wallace Fire Department Chief Brad Yochim said an employee who was alerted to the fire by an alarm system at the barn called 911 around 10 p.m.

“I was first on scene and when I got there, the barn was basically fully involved in fire,” said Yochim, adding that weather and road conditions resulted in a 30-minute response time.

The fire started in the northwest corner of the building and with the wind conditions — which measured between 35 to 48 km/h from 10 p.m. until midnight at Virden, according to the Weather Network — there was no chance of saving anything.

Kola is located 32 kilometres west of Virden.

“If you can imagine that many pigs in a concealed space basically trapped and on fire, the sounds are pretty bad. Squealing pigs — it’s not nice,” Yochim said.

The Office of the Fire Commissioner is investigating the blaze, but the cause is not yet known.
Yochim estimates the building was 600 feet by 100 feet and firefighters from Elkhorn, Virden and Maryfield were called in to battle the fire. Some were still on scene yesterday, dousing hot spots hidden in the twisted and charred mess of the former barn.

Claude Vielfaure, executive vice-president of HyLife Foods, confirmed the barn belonged to HyLife.
The barn is estimated to be 20 years old and housed sows, which give birth to hogs that eventually end up at market.

“This is extremely rare,” Vielfaure said. “We’re sad that some animals perished in the fire, but as a company we do everything we can to make sure these barns are as fire-safe as possible and it’s unfortunate that this happened.”

The fire somewhat clouds the good news this week for HyLife — a five-year deal that was reached between the union and the pork processing company in Neepawa.

On Monday, 1,100 employees voted 73.5 per cent in favour of ratifying the deal, which will see a wage increase between $1.90 and $2.65 over the life of the agreement.

“It’s a good time to be bargaining because the industry is starting to turn around,” said Jeff Traeger, union representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 832. “It is a significant wage increase and it puts them at pretty much the highest paid packing-house workers in Manitoba.”

A typical rate ranges between $14.50 and $19.90, according to Traeger.

Of the 1,100 employees, 800 have been directly recruited through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, primarily from the Philippines.

Last summer the federal government made changes to the program and Traeger said the negotiations took that into account.

“We did the same thing that Maple Leaf did late last year and that is to increase the start rate so they can attract more domestic hires.”

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