LAFARGEVILLE, JEFFERSON CO. (AP) -- Authorities say 150 cows have been killed in a barn fire on a northern New York dairy farm.

Officials tell Watertown media outlets that the fire started around 8:30 p.m. Sunday in a barn at Danny and Debbie Davis' farm in the Jefferson County hamlet of LaFargeville, 80 miles north of Syracuse.

Family members say they'd finished milking cows earlier in the evening and believe a milk pump may have caused the fire, which killed all of the animals in the barn.

Firefighters from more than a dozen departments responded to the blaze, which destroyed the 276-foot-long metal siding barn. Tankers had to be used to ferry water to the scene.

The cause remains under investigation.

(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)