Posted by:
W von Papineäu
at Mon Oct 9 15:00:18 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by W von Papineäu ]
POST GAZETTE (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) 09 October 06 $30,000 in ball pythons burn up in Hempfield blaze; homeowner injured - Snakes were being bred to pay off student loans (Gary Rotstein)
A blaze in Hempfield early yesterday injured the elderly homeowner and cost his son the large collection of ball python snakes he had been breeding to pay off student loans.
Brandon Repovz was keeping more than 100 snakes in the Wooster Street home, where he lives with his father, Robert, and Brandon's girlfriend. Stored on racks of plastic containers in the basement, where the fire evidently started, none of the 3-foot, nonvenomous reptiles survived.
"What I lost there was about $30,000 in snakes. I had about $25,000 in student loans left to pay off, and now there's no easy way to do that," said Mr. Repovz, an Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate whose full-time job is with a data-tracking firm. He spoke by phone yesterday from the airport in Detroit, which he said he was passing through on his way back from a business conference in Las Vegas.
He said that after the fire began, his father, Robert Repovz, 79, was helped from the home by a neighbor. His father was transported by ambulance to Mercy Hospital, where he was being treated for smoke inhalation, second-degree burns on his hands and first-degree burns to his face.
Adamsburg Volunteer Fire Chief Donald Thoma said neighbors apprised firefighters arriving on the scene after 1:30 a.m. that the homeowners kept "exotic animals" in the basement.
"A few minutes later, they came over to tell us they were mostly, if not all, snakes," Chief Thoma said, with neighbors further reporting that the collection in the home might include hundreds of reptiles, and some might be poisonous.
The basement was so dark that the snakes were hard to see, but it was apparent to firefighters that most or all had died, the chief said. The fire appeared to be electrical in nature and might have been related to special heating tape and pads used for the snakes, he said. The home was severely damaged.
Brandon Repovz said he kept no venomous snakes, and the size of the ball pythons kept the constrictors from being a threat to humans. He has spent the past several years buying them as babies and raising them, to sell via the Internet. At one time, he had 200 of them, but had been gradually reducing the number as he found buyers.
"I'm just crushed," he said, noting neither the house nor the snakes were insured. "I was probably going to be rid of them in about six months. The sole purpose was to pay off loans and be done with them. ... Now I'm coming back from Vegas with no home and a bagful of clothes."
$30,000 in ball pythons burn up in Hempfield blaze
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 PA Press: Ball Pythons in Blaze *Ugly* - W von Papineäu, Mon Oct 9 15:00:18 2006
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