An old chicken coop burned to the ground in Ypsilanti Township on Monday morning, but its former residents were all unharmed, according to firefighters.

Ypsilanti Township firefighters responded to the fire at 11:47 a.m. Monday in the 800 block of Jerome Street, firefighters said.

The owner of the coop had been sawing the aging structure earlier that morning and it’s believed a spark might have caught the straw inside the shed to catch on fire, firefighters said.

The coop burned down and scorched a fence and shed nearby, but there was no major damage to the home or power lines above it, according to firefighters.

Most importantly, the three or four chickens that lived in the coop were running around the backyard unharmed while firefighters put out the blaze.

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Kyle Feldscher covers cops and courts for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.