Brunton Dairy working to rebuild after fire, will be at least a year before milk is back on shelves

BEAVER COUNTY, Pa. — It’s been two weeks since a popular Beaver County dairy farm suffered a major fire.

The bottling plant and cow barn at Brunton Dairy were destroyed. More than a dozen cows died in the blaze.

PHOTOS: Massive flames rip through dairy farm in Beaver County

“[It’s] extremely hard to watch everything in your life go up in fire and smoke. It’s extremely hard to deal with,” Ed Brunton said. Channel 11 spoke with Ed and his brother Herb at the Craig Farm in Clinton, PA.

Seventy of the surviving Brunton cows are being housed there.

“It just so happened he quit milking cows two years ago and this facility was available when we needed it,” Herb said. It’s where the cows are living and being milked.

With the bottling plant destroyed, milk is being sent to Schneider’s Dairy in Pittsburgh. It’ll be a while before the Bruntons can bottle milk, themselves.

“[The} milk business, it’s not there. It’s not going to be there for a while. It’ll be at least a year before we’re back up on our feet,” Herb said.

In the meantime, the family is dealing with insurance. They’re also getting a big boost from the community. More than $160,000 was raised through a GoFundMe alone. Local businesses and churches are also helping.

“It’s been overwhelming and astonishing. I didn’t know I was that popular,” Herb said.

“It just proves that people are still supportive and care about humanity, which I thought was always lost but is still there today,” Ed said.

It’s been tough on the cows, too. Surviving cows have been producing less milk than usual.

“They’ve been very stressed out,” Ed said.

Production has started to pick up. The brothers tell us that’s a good sign.

They aren’t giving up and neither is the family.

“We’ve been kicked several times and we’ve always gotten back up. That’s what I’ll say about the Brunton family.”

The cause of the fire is still unknown.

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