DARLINGTON - It took seven area fire departments and hundreds of thousands of gallons of water to extinguish a barn fire at a calf farm just outside Darlington Tuesday.

Firefighters were dispatched at noon to Paramount Farms on Wisconsin 81 in the Town of Seymour, according to the Lafayette County Sheriff's Department.

The cause of the fire is unknown, Sheriff Reg Gill told WKOW Tuesday afternoon. It started in haystacks on one end of the long open barn.

No calves at the farm were harmed.

Jason King, chief of the Darlington Police Department, wrote in an email Wednesday that he was at the fire as a representative of Rural Medical Ambulance Service.

The EMS team "assessed one employee at the scene who complained of smoke inhalation, but he did not want to be transported to the hospital. Other than that, we did not have any injuries," King wrote.

Fire departments from Darlington, Shullsburg, Gratiot, Benton, Cuba City, Belmont and Mineral Point fought the blaze.

Also assisting at the scene were the sheriff's department, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Darlington police.

- Katjusa Cisar