On Saturday morning, flames suddenly erupted at the Chester Zoo and tore through the Monsoon Forest Habitat of the zoo.
Chester Zoo confirmed that many of the animals were killed in this devastating fire incident.
Emergency services responded shortly after the incident, declared this as a major incident, and started an immediate evacuation of the zoo. Emergency services worked tirelessly to move all the animals to nearby safety.
According to the zoo officials, although many of the insects, frogs, fishes and small birds located in the near outbreak point of fire were not able to survive, all the mammals were evacuated. These mammals include critically injured Sumatran orangutans, rare silvery gibbons, Sulawesi macaques and birds such as rhinoceros hornbills were saved.
According to the zoo, it was one of the toughest days in its history ever.
In a statement, Zoo boss Jamie Christon stated, ‘it is absolutely heartbreaking to lose any animals especially when conservationists worked so hard to breed these beautiful species. For all the animals that were timely led to safety, new homes have been found within the zoo. Our teams are working round the clock tirelessly to make their relocation happen fast.
Chester Zoo, which is a popular tourist attraction, is a home to more than 21000 animals will be working to rebuild this destroyed part of the zoo and continue with our mission of preventing extinction”.
The eyewitness described the scene as to how the visitors rushed towards the door of the largest indoor exhibition in the UK and were then evacuated to safety, while the blaze spread rapidly through the polymer roofing material.
Lee Shears, incident commander at Cheshire Fire and Rescue said to media, “this was a challenging experience for us as it was a large and complex fire.
We came in with an excess of 15 pumps and managed to enter inside the building and contain the fire in shortest possible time.
We were able to save a significant portion of the building. Crews are still on site and we are still damping down the area.
We are confident to say that we know the cause of the fire and it was an accidental one.”
Following this devastating incident, the zoo set up a fundraising page for its conservation work.
In just a few short hours of the news, the page was able to raise about 50,000 pounds which have now reached a mark of more than 180,000 pounds.
Watch the video of flame and smoke rising from the Chester Zoo in the video down below.
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