AN ENORMOUS blaze ripped through a large chicken shed and sadly killed scores of young chicks at a farm last night, firefighters have confirmed.

Fire and rescue crews from Reading, Bracknell and Wokingham all rushed to the scene in Shurlock Row after the emergency operator received a panicked call from the farmer.

By the time they arrived at the poultry farm the shed, used to house chickens, was well alight. Crews managed to rescue some of the birds but sadly a number of them were killed in the blaze.

Embers and smoke spread as far as they nearby M4 motorway as crews doused the flames throughout the night. The exact cause of the inferno is not yet known and an investigation into the blaze is due to be carried out today.

Group manager Paul Jones, duty manager for Royal Berkshire, said: “We got called at about 8pm to reports of lots of smoke and flames in the area.

“We then got a phone call from the address reporting a large chicken shed on fire. We originally sent crews from Bracknell and Maidenhead but when they arrived they saw what was a very intense fire and requested additional support.

“We ended up with nine vehicles here at the height of the incident. We also needed off-road units and command units.”

The 150m by 25m chicken shed was completely destroyed in the blaze and fire crews remained on the scene earlier this morning.

The damage could have been worse however had crews not managed to contain the flames to a single shed.

Mr Jones added: “We can’t speculate what caused the fire but we have an investigation officer who was here last night and will be coming back later today.

“The fire did start to spread but luckily the crews worked very hard and we managed to stop it spreading to another shed which is about the same size. They are 150m x 25m and there are several other outbuildings as well.

“Unfortunately there were some very young chickens in there and because of the intensity of the fire there were a fair few that did not survive, however we managed to save a lot more by the actions of the crews.”

Call operators were inundated with calls relating to the blaze as smoke drifted away from the quaint rural village between Binfield and Twyford.

Mr Jones continued: “We had crews here all night dampening down the flames.

“Because it was so windy last night we had hot embers going over to the other buildings and some smoke going over to the M4 so we had lots of fire calls coming from the M4.

“Thames Valley control were very busy because of this incident.”