Five farms infected by avian influenza in the Fraser Valley are still undergoing a “bio-heat” process while the remaining six — which have completed the treatment — have been greenlit for disinfestations, according to the poultry industry.

Ray Nickel, president of the B.C. Poultry Association, said on Wednesday it’s been 21 days since the last commercial farm saw an avian flu outbreak in B.C.

To date, 240,000 birds — among them both turkeys and chickens — have been destroyed.

In the past days, farms have been undergoing a composting process used to eliminate the virus through high temperatures, Nickel said, including everything affected by birds in the barns — manure, sawdust, feed, carcasses, among other things.

“They actually build compost piles in the barn, when they reach a certain heat temperature. CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) monitors that and CFIA will sign off on that material,” he said.

“Then the producers can take that material out of the barns and start the disinfestations.”

Nickel expects it to be another seven to 10 days before the remainder of the farms are ready for disinfestation.

“We’re in a recovery mode and it’ll take a while before we have all this back to normal, but we are making some headway.”

Nickel added that despite the outbreak, poultry sales over the holidays have not been dramatically affected.

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