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PRO EXOTICS burning!

Whole-heartedly agree, my statement wasn't meant to be construed that the true value of the animals would be compensated for. I know what it's like to lose a single animal, but I can only imagine the loss they must be feeling.
 
Yes I would imagine the emotional loss is much worse than the financial. 20 years of blood, sweat and tears... I cannot imagine.
 
My, as well as yours I bet, herp society is discussing the fire. We do feel for the PE staff and the amazing animals that passed just as everyone does.

However, at some point after reading that description of events you have to ask yourself, 'Where was the sprinkler system? Why didn't the fire and smoke alarms go off before the fire was so large that it broke windows with heat to set off the burglar alarm?' With all that many lives hanging in the balance, what went really wrong here? I'm not trying to cause a ruckus, but I had to admit these were good questions.

If you are a breeder and have a breeding bldg or even bigger, I hope you have adequate fire protection for the animals. All the soldering and heat elements, etc have to really increase our odds of a fire.

This event is making us all question whether we have enough protection in our reptile rooms/bldgs too.
 
Thank you all for the well wishes and support. It means so much to me, and our entire PE team.

It has been a rough couple of days. More remain ahead.

We met with insurance folks today. Just trying to get a basic understanding of what is covered. Things look good on that front, thankfully.

Our facility is in a warehouse/office district. Our space had offices up front, with 4500 sq ft of snakes in the warehouse. 8 snakes of nearly 3000 lived. It is a total loss, total devastation. With the smoke and water damage, everything has been lost. We tried to salvage some personal items today, but everything has been touched by fire, smoke, soot or water.

It is an older building, no sprinklers, and the landlord wasn't about to spend a million dollars to install them. No one envisioned such a tragedy was even possible.

We have another building across the parking lot housing our monitor lizards and rodent breeding. That is untouched. We are grateful.

I don't know what the future holds. There are months ahead just dealing with insurance folks. We DO have gap coverage that will help pay employee salaries and expenses, thank goodness.

I don't know that even with the graphic pics at facebook Pro Exotics, I don't know that folks understand the devastation.

There are NO cages left, we have no inventory left (20,000 temp guns melted, books, thermostats, etc. all ruined), we found 8 amazing survivors, but we have no cages to put them in (Sloan Reptiles are housing survivors locally for us). Phone system is dead, computers are all wet. There are no boxes to pack orders in, nor any tape to close the boxes. Total devastation, for real.

And it is just surreal. When I stop to rest, it starts to hit, and hard. The outpouring of support from the reptile community is amazing, uplifting, and just awesome. Thank you all, it means so much.

I can't get the smoke stink off of me, my clothes, or out of my car. But I am lucky. No people were hurt, and when I feel weak, the reptile community gives me strength. Super lucky. Thank you for the support, it means SO much.
 
Robyn, I've been through an electrical house fire that destroyed pretty much everything we had in less than an hour, and I still can't imagine what you're going through. Do really let us know if you think of anything we can do to help, in any way. I wish I was in CO, so I could at least help with the cleanup.

You're right about the loss and trauma not hitting in full yet; it won't for a while. Make sure you have plenty of support around you when it does. The very best to you and all of the PE family.
 
robyn@Pro Exotics said:
Thank you all for the well wishes and support. It means so much to me, and our entire PE team.

It has been a rough couple of days. More remain ahead.

We met with insurance folks today. Just trying to get a basic understanding of what is covered. Things look good on that front, thankfully.

Our facility is in a warehouse/office district. Our space had offices up front, with 4500 sq ft of snakes in the warehouse. 8 snakes of nearly 3000 lived. It is a total loss, total devastation. With the smoke and water damage, everything has been lost. We tried to salvage some personal items today, but everything has been touched by fire, smoke, soot or water.

It is an older building, no sprinklers, and the landlord wasn't about to spend a million dollars to install them. No one envisioned such a tragedy was even possible.

We have another building across the parking lot housing our monitor lizards and rodent breeding. That is untouched. We are grateful.

I don't know what the future holds. There are months ahead just dealing with insurance folks. We DO have gap coverage that will help pay employee salaries and expenses, thank goodness.

I don't know that even with the graphic pics at facebook Pro Exotics, I don't know that folks understand the devastation.

There are NO cages left, we have no inventory left (20,000 temp guns melted, books, thermostats, etc. all ruined), we found 8 amazing survivors, but we have no cages to put them in (Sloan Reptiles are housing survivors locally for us). Phone system is dead, computers are all wet. There are no boxes to pack orders in, nor any tape to close the boxes. Total devastation, for real.

And it is just surreal. When I stop to rest, it starts to hit, and hard. The outpouring of support from the reptile community is amazing, uplifting, and just awesome. Thank you all, it means so much.

I can't get the smoke stink off of me, my clothes, or out of my car. But I am lucky. No people were hurt, and when I feel weak, the reptile community gives me strength. Super lucky. Thank you for the support, it means SO much.
Click to expand...

Damn.... this has REALLY got to be most people's worst nightmare who have animals. Really sorry this happened to you guys.
 
Wow, I thought it sucked when I lost all my snakes due to divorce..... sad to see and I hope to see them back up and running in the near future....
 
I just heard about this tragic story. I ordered some balls from PE several years back and they were very awesome people to deal with. My prayers go to out you guys on getting back on your feet. I can't imagine all the fruits of your labor destroyed in an instant such as this. You guys really have had a huge impact on the industry.
 
However, at some point after reading that description of events you have to ask yourself, 'Where was the sprinkler system? Why didn't the fire and smoke alarms go off before the fire was so large that it broke windows with heat to set off the burglar alarm?' With all that many lives hanging in the balance, what went really wrong here? I'm not trying to cause a ruckus, but I had to admit these were good questions.

If you are a breeder and have a breeding bldg or even bigger, I hope you have adequate fire protection for the animals. All the soldering and heat elements, etc have to really increase our odds of a fire.
Click to expand...

Very relevant questions, a terrible loss, and I don't want to start any trouble or second guess anyone, but most companies that do burglar alarms, like ADT, also offer monitoring for smoke, fire,water leaks and CO2 levels, and even for the DIYer, with todays technology, its so easy to monitor conditions in your home or building remotely from your computer (or even phone) and receive alerts by texts etc. if the parameters go above your specifications (temp. too low, too high etc.). Most of this stuff is readily available over the net. As far as sprinkler systems - I doubt it costs millions, especially in a warehouse where it doesn't need to be pretty, its just basic plumbing and heat activated sprinkler heads. If I had that much inventory I think it would be a good investment whether the landlord would pay for it or not. Especially with all the electrical stuff we use with herps it certainly pays to be extremely proactive with fire protection.
 
I cant even find the words right now to express how shocked I am when I found out about the fire. I hope that the insurance comes through but like Chad said, 20 years of hard work and taking care of these amazing animals perished. I hope that everyone at Pro Exotics recovers, and that you are back up and running again soon.

And if you are in need of help cleaning up or re-assembling still in two weeks, I will be moving to CO then and will be glad to help!

My prayers for you guys!

The other Chad Brown
 
As far as sprinkler systems - I doubt it costs millions, especially in a warehouse where it doesn't need to be pretty, its just basic plumbing and heat activated sprinkler heads.
Click to expand...
I am not certain, but I do not think a standard water supply from a municipal
facility could handle the demands of a fire control system.
I worked in a factory that had an elaborate sprinkler system, and it had a 12" main line and I believe far more pressure than standard..
Personally, I do not think anyone should be trying to "second guess" Chad or Robyn at this time, I have a feeling they would do everything in their power to prevent it from happening again... if they could:(
 
I don't have a sprinkler system in my reptile room and I don't know anyone who does. In most of the commercial buildings that rent space, I haven't seen sprinkler systems installed. I asked a couple people who said that if the sprinkler system malfunctions, it can ruin the entire business(depending on what the business is, of course, but most were offices) so the building management can be held liable for all damages. Another reason many commercial rental units don't come with sprinkler systems.

It's soooo easy to use perfect 20/20 hindsight and say "Oh, well, should have had sprinklers" or "should have split the collection up" or whatever. I wonder how many of the people pointing fingers at ProExotics's "mistakes" have their own sprinkler systems in?

Hindsight is always going to be 20/20. I'm certain that everyone at ProExotics is already beating themselves up over the whole situation, whether it could have been prevented or stopped or what. It's easy to be the armchair quarterback and declare what "you" would do or think they should have done. Just remember that you aren't the one having to identify each one of thousands of snakes, some that you've owned for 20 years. If you were doing that, looking at the ruins of 20 years of passion... do you really think you'd want someone spouting off about how you "should have" done something?

Most of the reptile community have really shown a ton of support to ProExotics. Even if someone can't donate, or doesn't feel it's appropriate to donate, the message of "I'm really sorry this happened" helps too. I've been surprised at how the entire community has really risen up to help.
 
Yes this can be debated all day - maybe sprinklers aren't the answer but IMHO if you are at the level of a PE and responsible for the well being of 3,000 animals, have an unoccupied building at night, had many thousands in inventory and fixtures and you already are paying for a burglar alarm company - wouldn't ya think you'd want to have monitoring for smoke and temperature too? It just makes no sense to me. Probably just a couple bucks more per month..... hell I know a person who raises guinea pigs that has that stuff in her buildings- she gets a call if the building gets 5 degrees over what it should be! Let alone hot enough to break the windows!

You have to be pro-active with this stuff but too many people are so keen on getting the next hot new morph or species that they skimp on the basics like an adequate electrical system, smoke detection, etc.

Allow me to play devils advocate:
If PE let all their animals starve to death, for example, there would be a huge uproar in the herp community but here they basically let all their animals die by apparently not having any early smoke/fire detection system in place, but thats o.k. I guess and they will get sympathy...? Most likely this fire started out as a small smoldering type thing from a heat or electrical source and could have easily been detected early on.


Its unfortunate situation but hopefully this will be a wake up call for others! Be overly cautious, have redundant systems, think of all possible scenarios that could happen to your facility - Especially with all the potential fire hazards used with reptiles!
 
I think someone is being a little harsh about this situation REGARDLESS of what happened or "could have been done". What's done is done PE is moving forward we do not have to be sitting here throwing the use of sprinkler systems and smoke detectors in their face. If your not gonna have anything positive to say to PE than maybe you should not be saying ANYTHING at all. I have only done business through them for SYR.com I love the animals they produce and their services they offer.

PRO EXOTICS I AM VERY SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS YOUR POSITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD THIS SITUATION IS GREAT AND DOES REMIND EVERYBODY THAT YES IT COULD BE WORSE.
 
How's this ?

dzoo said:
Yes this can be debated all day - maybe sprinklers aren't the answer but IMHO if you are at the level of a PE and responsible for the well being of 3,000 animals, have an unoccupied building at night, had many thousands in inventory and fixtures and you already are paying for a burglar alarm company - wouldn't ya think you'd want to have monitoring for smoke and temperature too? It just makes no sense to me. Probably just a couple bucks more per month..... hell I know a person who raises guinea pigs that has that stuff in her buildings- she gets a call if the building gets 5 degrees over what it should be! Let alone hot enough to break the windows!

You have to be pro-active with this stuff but too many people are so keen on getting the next hot new morph or species that they skimp on the basics like an adequate electrical system, smoke detection, etc.

Allow me to play devils advocate:
If PE let all their animals starve to death, for example, there would be a huge uproar in the herp community but here they basically let all their animals die by apparently not having any early smoke/fire detection system in place, but thats o.k. I guess and they will get sympathy...? Most likely this fire started out as a small smoldering type thing from a heat or electrical source and could have easily been detected early on.


Its unfortunate situation but hopefully this will be a wake up call for others! Be overly cautious, have redundant systems, think of all possible scenarios that could happen to your facility - Especially with all the potential fire hazards used with reptiles!
Click to expand...
Will this work ?
 

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Chief: Fire Started On Floor By Wiring Used To Heat Snake Containers

TheDenverChannel.com

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/29407922/detail.html

Related To Story
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Pro Exotics​
A boa constrictor is pulled out of a fire at the Pro Exotics store.
​


Electrical Cause Likely In Fire That Killed 3,000 Snakes

Chief: Fire Started On Floor By Wiring Used To Heat Snake Containers



LITTLETON, Colo. -- Fire investigators believe a reptile store fire that killed more than 3,000 snakes last month was ignited by wiring used for heating devices to keep reptiles warm.

"Our preliminary investigation indicates that it was electric in nature," Littleton Fire Division Chief Jim Hofstra told 7NEWS.


Fire investigators found the fire originated at the floor level, Hofstra said.

"The only ignition source in that area was the extensive electrical wiring that was throughout the store. They had boxes of extension cords used for the heaters and heat tape" that kept reptile containers warm, Hofstra said.


Heat tape is an electrically heated thin plastic sheet placed beneath reptile containers.


Hofstra said investigators are doing additional testing to calculate the electrical load on circuits based on the number of extension cords used to power the heating devices.



The fire that broke out at about 5:40 a.m. on Sept. 26 in a warehouse at 3911 Norwood Drive badly damaged the Pro Exotics reptile store and caused less damage to other businesses in the warehouse.


Pro Exotics' owners said about 3,000 non-venomous snakes were kept in the containers stored in racks throughout the warehouse.


Almost all of the snakes died, but a small number of snakes were found alive, including a large boa constrictor that two firefighters carried from the warehouse ruins. Also rescued from the unit were several incubation containers holding snake eggs that may survive.


The shop specialized in breeding high-end exotic snakes, some worth more than $20,000, according to store owners.
 
Casey Hulse said:
I am not certain, but I do not think a standard water supply from a municipal
facility could handle the demands of a fire control system.
I worked in a factory that had an elaborate sprinkler system, and it had a 12" main line and I believe far more pressure than standard..
Personally, I do not think anyone should be trying to "second guess" Chad or Robyn at this time, I have a feeling they would do everything in their power to prevent it from happening again... if they could:(
Click to expand...

Thank you Casey! You are so right, now is not the time for that. Now is the time to put our collective arms around our herp brothers and support them through the shock and the loss.
 
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