An empty chicken barn that caught fire near the town of Ste. Anne Friday afternoon has been declared a total loss.

When Fire Chief John Desrochers and his crews arrived at the scene around 4:00 PM, they found the barn’s attic on fire.

“The fire wasn’t very large, but we had multiple layers of wood-shavings and shiplap under an asphalt tar flat roof, so it was extremely stubborn,” he notes.

Tankers from Giroux and the RM of Taché were called in to assist Ste. Anne crews as they battled the blaze. After a few futile hours of trying to extinguish the fire with water, Desrochers says his team was forced to pull apart the building with an excavator. Firefighters were finally able to leave the site just before 9:00 PM.

By the chief’s best guess, the fire originated on the second floor of the $350,000 structure and was likely electrical in nature. However, the fire is not being investigated further so no official cause will be determined.