About 20,000 chickens burnt to death today after their Norfolk broiler house was razed to the ground. The main A149 road was blocked all afternoon as sixty firefighters battled to put out the blaze, in a PD Hook chicken shed at Ormesby St Michael.

About 20,000 chickens burnt to death today after their Norfolk broiler house was razed to the ground.

The main A149 road was blocked all afternoon as sixty firefighters battled to put out the blaze, in a PD Hook chicken shed at Ormesby St Michael.

Eyewitnesses reported hearing a series of loud bangs at midday and saw flames shooting out of the shed's asbestos-sheet roof, close to the main road and houses.

Nine fire engines attended, including from Martham, Yarmouth, Loddon, Acle, Wroxham and Lowestoft.

Watch Manager Alan Jaye told the EDP: “The fire spread through the shed very quickly, when we arrived half was burning intensively.

“We believe it was started by an electrical fault, which spread quickly through a void above panels in the roof. We can't estimate the number of chickens dead - we know there were 24,000 in the shed but we don't know how many we saved.”

Fire crews continued to damp down the site until early evening. The rest of the chickens on site were being cared for in another shed. Staff said they weren't affected by stress.