Lebanon — On April 26, 1989, a fire broke out at Kofkoff Egg Farms, jumping from one coop to a second, destroying 216,000 chickens and causing $3 million to $4 million in damages.

So Tuesday, when a fire started in one of the 400 Mack Road farm's coops around 5:41 p.m., the phrase "history repeats itself" hit a little too close to home.

According to Fire Marshal Scott Schuett, who also was the fire marshal in 1989, the fire this time was contained to one approximately 32,000-square-foot coop.

"The departments did a great job last night," Schuett said, calling their work "a heck of a stop."

The fire did not cause any reported injuries to firefighters or farm employees.

The blaze most likely started in one of the electric motors that power conveyor belts that move chicken waste, food, water and eggs in and out of the coops, Schuett said Wednesday.

Schuett and members of the state police Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit found one or two electric motors in the farm that sustained internal damage.

Because investigators could not say with 100 percent certainty that the fire started in one of the motors, the official cause will be listed as "undetermined," Schuett said.

"There's nothing that leapt right out and said, 'it's me, it's me,'" he said. "Everything we're finding makes it look like it was an accident."

The farm's owners told investigators that they had not noticed any problems with the motors before Tuesday's fire, Schuett said.

But buildup of the dust and feathers that collect in an egg farm can lead to mechanical problems, he said.

"Just the material that collects in there could cause friction," he said. "Even the feed that they feed (the chickens) puts off dust that is highly combustible."

Farms rarely install smoke and heat detectors because they would quickly get clogged up with dust and feathers, he said.

Schuett said the exact number of chickens killed in the fire is not yet known, but is estimated to be between 80,000 and 125,000.

According to Michael Darre, a professor and extension poultry specialist at the University of Connecticut, the loss of 80,000 hens means the loss of about 70,400 eggs per day.

In other words, Kofkoff stands to lose whatever revenue about 5,866 dozen eggs would bring them each day until it has built and filled a new coop.

Still, Darre called the losses a "small effect on the total egg market."

At least 25 fire departments and about 150 firefighters from across the region responded to the fire, which was deemed completely under control between 10:15 and 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Schuett said.

According to Joe Sastre — emergency management director for Groton and chair of the Region 4 Regional Emergency Planning Team Steering Committee — the process involved in arranging such a response is a complicated but well-oiled one.

In many fires, Sastre said, the commander of the fire, often a chief, will contact his or her town's dispatch center when he or she realizes there's a need for additional resources. From there, that dispatch center works with others to make sure the commander's requests are met.

In the case of Tuesday's fire, he continued, the Southeast Tanker Task Force was activated, meaning a variety of the region's departments were contacted to send pre-designated tankers and other equipment as well as manpower to the scene while still leaving behind enough resources for their own towns.

"The chiefs and the fire services get together on a regular basis to discuss things like this, to address potential issues ... and they do a really nice job for what's basically a volunteer fire service throughout the region," Sastre said.

With a fire as large as Tuesday's — when all of Lebanon's fire resources were devoted to battling the flames at Kofkoff — Sastre said it's "not unusual" for departments from as far away as Massachusetts and Rhode Island to send some resources to cover the most affected town, just in case there is another fire.

"It's very well planned out, the mutual aid response," Sastre said. "It's a daily thing around here in eastern Connecticut. You help your neighbor out knowing someday down the road you're going to need help and your neighbor's going to help you."

According to Scott Devico, public information officer with the state Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, members of the department's Region 4 also were in constant contact with the town in the event state assistance was needed.

Kofkoff Egg Farms LLC, which also has operations in Bozrah, Franklin and Colchester, became a subsidiary of Pennsylvania-based Hillandale Farms Conn LLC in July last year. Prior to that, Kofkoff operated under Moark LLC.

In February 2014, Kenneth Pauze, director of operations for Moark LLC – East at the time, wrote in a letter to the state legislative Planning and Development Committee that Kofkoff had 4.7 million birds and employed close to 300 people.

Officials with Hillandale Farms — one of the largest egg producers in the country — could not be reached to comment about the fire or whether those numbers have changed.

Kofkoff is no stranger to fires and other disasters at its various locations.

In January 2011, a coop at its Bozrah location collapsed under the weight of heavy snow and ice, killing 85,000 chickens.

Just more than one year earlier, in December 2009, Kofkoff lost a different coop — this one unoccupied — to a late-night fire.

And, in 2003, the company faced losing almost 3 million chickens who'd come down with a mild form of avian influenza until the state developed a vaccination plan to save the majority of them.

l.boyle@theday.com

Day Staff reporter Martha Shanahan contributed to this story.