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UPDATE: Dozens of farmworkers displaced after fire tears through building

Flames broke out Thursday morning in building that housed up to 80 workers at Abbotsford farm
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A building used to house dozens of farmworkers in Abbotsford caught fire Thursday morning. Tyler Olsen/Abbotsford News

Dozens of seasonal farmworkers from Mexico have been displaced after a fire tore through a worker’s bunkhouse in Abbotsford Thursday morning.

The fire broke out just before 9:30 a.m. in a building that housed nearly 80 employees at Lakeland Flowers, in the 39000 block of No. 4 Road in Abbotsford.

Five fire crews responded to the blaze, which belched smoke over Highway 1 but didn’t significantly impact traffic. Crews were able to knock down the flames fairly quickly upon arriving.

All of the workers were quickly accounted for, but the state of the workers’ possessions is not yet known.

A diplomatic attaché from the Mexican consulate visited the site following the blaze to help the temporary workers impacted.

In a tweet, Patricia de la Maza of the consulate wrote that 78 seasonal agricultural workers from Mexico had been affected, but were otherwise safe and would be relocated to other farms.