By Fritz Klug and Simon Thalman Kalamazoo Gazette

RICHLAND —

(Updated 12 a.m.) Fire and emergency personnel were busy squelching a fire that erupted before 9:30 p.m. Friday on Pfizer Inc.'s animal research farm off Gull Road, near 28th Street between Kalamazoo and Richland.

Dennis Kiel, farm operations manager for Pfizer, said fire engulfed a hay barn and the barn was destroyed. But he said no animals or humans were injured. The cause of the fire was still not determined.

Kiel said the barn is 60 feet by 110 feet and about two-thirds full with around 300 bales of hay. Each bale weighs about 1,500 pounds.

"It’s nothing we can’t get past," Kiel said. "That’s hay. We’re glad we don’t have any injuries or loss of life of any kind."

Smoke continued to rise from the property past 11 p.m. The Pfizer spokesman said firefighters remained on the scene late Friday night to douse embers.

The barn was among many structures that the New York-based drug company has on 2,100 acres of land off Gull Road in Richland Township. Kalamazoo County is world headquarters for Pfizer's research into medicines for cattle, pigs, horses, poultry, sheep and domestic animals. Late last year, the company pumped about $10 million into new facilities there.

It spent $6 million to build a 24,000-square-foot facility to research new medicines for horses. And it spent $3.75 million on an 11,500-square-foot facility for the initial production of anitvenin (the clinical name for anti-venom) for treating coral snake bites.

The property is privately held by Pfizer and not open for public access.

A volunteer with the Comstock Township Fire Department on H Avenue in Kalamazoo said the department was called to respond at 9:27 p.m. and that department responded with the Richland Township Fire Department.

The volunteer, who asked that his name not be used, said the fire was structural in nature but said he did not know more.

At about 9:30 p.m., flames were visible from at least a quarter-mile away on the northside of the property, near Gull Road.

Emergency vehicles, including at least two large fire trucks, were still on scene at after 10 30 p.m.

Pfizer fire

The footage below was taken from the corner of 28th Street and G Avenue, about one-quarter of a mile south of the fire, between 9:30 and 9:45 p.m.