LEROY -- Fire killed at least several hundred hogs and caused more than $400,000 in damage Friday night at a barn five miles west of LeRoy, the sheriff said.
Authorities responded about 5:30 p.m. to a hog barn fire at 70587 110th Street — Mower County Road 6, — in LeRoy Township, finding smoke and flames coming from the northwest corner of one of two hog barns on the property, Sheriff Terese Amazi said.
About 4,000 hogs were in the barn at the time but most of them were saved from the fire, Amazi said.
The property owner Ronald Gilgenbach, 41, who lives near the hog barn, told authorities he didn't know what caused the fire. Gilgenbach said he visited the property earlier in the day and was on his way to Austin when he was told about the fire.
Firefighters from Adams and LeRoy as well as Stacyville, Iowa, responded to the blaze and were at the scene for at least four hours.
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Randy Eastbold, 51, reported the fire to authorities after getting a call from someone who saw it, the sheriff said.
