Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Friends
This weekend my home burned and with it all of my 400 animal collection including many visibles, DH. My wife and I made it out OK, but I did sustain second degree burns on my face and hands from a backdraft when I attempted a resuce. This was goin

Grant,
I'm so sorry to hear this. I have been thinking about the PE fire a lot since it happened. I don't know how their fire started or how your's started, but I have been reconsidering the use of heat tape and heat cables. Do you have any idea how it started?
Again, I'm sorry. I don't know anything else to say
Mike

Grant

So sorry to hear about your loss glad your family is safe. Mike what be the next option in heating? i have been using heat cables and flex watt heat tape had a ball rack once to burn a tub with the heat tape luckly i found it in time . only thing that stopped a fire was the rack being self extinguishing.

john

400 OMG....Sorry for your loss...but at least you are OK. Where are you located...didn't see anything on the news.
Travis
-----

LAIR OF DRAGONS

Grant,

So sorry to hear of your great loss. My condolences to you during this time. So thankful as well that your family is safe... Have a speedy recovery and please call if there is anything I can assist you with.

Justin K
-----
J. Kobylka Reptiles
JKR 2011 Birthing Records

Warning: Snakes have been shown to cause death in laboratory rats.

Grant: I am so sorry for you and your family. My veterinary clinic burned down Halloween night and it has been a struggle to pur it all back together. My heart goes out to you and your family. I know it will be impossible to replace your snakes and it hurts. You sure have been a help to me and lots of others. Don't give up. Tom Harbin
-----
Tom Harbin
www.threptiles.com

Grant,
I am so sorry to learn of your loss caused by the fire. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
Regards,
John
-----
John Woolard Reptiles

My husband and I give our deepest condolences. We're glad you got out with your lives. Please let us and the forum know if there is anything we can do to help. Do you know the cause of the fire so that we could try to avoid the same tragedy?

Rebecca & Steven
-----
25 year old 0.1 from Lincoln, NE
Ball Pythons - 0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly, 2.1 Normals
Kingsnakes - 1.0 L. m. thayeri, 0.1 L. m. thayeri X L. alterna, 1.0 L. g. californiae
Other - 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 1.0 H. nascicus, ?.? Chrysemys picta, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

Grant, I am sorry for your loss. At least you and your wife made it out alright.

If you wouldn't mind could you enlighten us with the cause of the fire?
It seems like you are now hearing more and more about peoples collections catching fire. It is starting to make me wanting to start checking my heat tape and thermostats. I wonder if they have a certain shelf life where they need to be replaced to prevent failures?

Thanks,
Rick Schlosser

Friends,
It appears that most of my original message was truncated and didn't make the post above. First thank everyone for their thoughts, emails, and calls. It is VERY much appreciated.
This is a pretty big blow as this was really going to be a big year for us. We had at least a dozen visible lavenders going this year, and about three dozen DH lav clown clutches going along with Het Co-doms. Just a little over a week ago we finally hatched our first lavender clown after over 50 DH x DH eggs and three years of trying.
There is a fire investigator coming over to determine the cause of the fire, but it almost certainly started in the snake room and the only thing it could have been is an electrical fire.
I will share more when I know more.
EVERYONE!!!!! Please check your ALL of your electrical systems and heat systems out completely. You cannot be too careful.
My wife and I got out OK, but I lost every snake I had and got second degree burns to my face and hands from a backdraft in a rescue attempt. Lots of love, time, and hard work (not to mention money) were lost and will be hard to replace. I am still in a bit of a state of shock over the whole thing.
Anyway, I have about 300 rats in four 15 tub home made rat racks that I would be happy to give to someone if they can come and get them in Vermont in the next couple of days. The cut the power so I have no water (on a well).
If anyone can use them, I can be reached via my email at
grant@lavenderalbino.com

Something like this really puts things into perspective and I guess we are lucky that it happened in the evening while we were awake or it may very well have turned out differently. EVERYONE take extra care to keep you and your families safe.

Thanks again to all
Grant Whitmer

I am so sorry for your loss, it is everyones worst nightmare. I am happy to hear you were not seriously injured.
It is times like this we need to lean on our friends and family for help and support, if there is anything I can do to help recover from your loss, it would be an honour. Please let me know. Casey Hulse

Grant i am so so sorry please let us know if their is anything we can do

Jon and amanda
-----
Thank You
Jon and Amanda
www.albinosunlimited.com
Check out our New Blog

Grant,
We are so sorry to hear about this tragedy. Having seen the PE fire in person we know how you feel. It makes you sick. Glad to hear you and your wife are safe! We are praying you have a speedy recovery. Stay strong.
Nick & Justin
-----
Sloan Reptiles
www.sloanreptiles.net

Grant, we are so sorry to hear of your loss, you and your family our in our prayers.

This is the worst thing to hear, ever...

A recommendation for EVERYONE: I have an alarm system with a land line and a cell-phone backup line (with a back up system power battery good for a week without power). The alarm system has a smoke/fire detector where all my snakes are housed. It's a 'no defeat' system and had worked for me before when I had a lightning strike so close to my home it blew a sprinkler system timer clean off the wall. The fireball and smoke from the strike tripped the alarm instantly and the fire department was there in less than 5 minutes and were ready to 'cut in' when my wife arrived home at nearly the same time (of course, this could have been a problem if I lived very far from a firehouse). Could this help in case of a full-blown fire? Not sure... but, I'm absolutely convinced that the $2000 bucks for the system and $40/month monitoring is one of the best investments I've ever made and hope it never needs to be used again. I HATE to hear of tragic things like this, and again, sorry Grant- very sad news.

Matt
p.s. - If you don't mind, can I ask what type of racks you used?

So sorry to learn of your loss caused by the fire. This is a BIG loss, your house and your snake collection! Glad to hear that you and your wife made it out OK
-----
Sed et serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terrae quae fecerat Dominus Deus...

Grant,

As soon as I saw the headline, the feelings of horror overcame me. Again.

I am so sorry to hear about your fire. The one thing that me me feel better about the fire at PE was the fact that I could drive home. It is one thing to lose the snakes, the racks, the hard work and the years it took to get to the point were you were yesterday. It is quite another to lose your home. I am hurting for you, big time.

The support from the reptile world was a huge in helping Robyn and I find strength. Lean on your reptile friends in these trying times. We are here to help you. Stay strong.

Chad

Grant,
So sorry to hear of your devastating loss. It must be difficult to count your blessing at such a time, but it certainly is a blessing that you and your family were able to escape the fire. Please know that our thoughts are with you and your family, and we wish you a speedy recovery from you injuries.

Sincerely,
Dan

Grant my thoughts and prayers goes out to you and the family.

Grant,

I am so sorry to hear about your loss.
I'm glad that you and your wife made it to safety.
Our thoughts are with you during this tragedy.

Sincerely,
Harlin Wall

Good to hear the family is safe,and i hope you heal up fast...Let us know when we can help.

btw..The first thing i thought of was Gweniver..Now we will never know why she was so different.

-
-----
Charles Glaspie
picasaweb.google.com/coldthumb

Words can't express how sorry I am for your loss. It def sucks to lose the collection, but your home on top of it, I can't even imagine. I just would like to wish you a speedy recovery both physically and emotionally. My prayers go out to you and your family in your time of need.

Grant
I am so sorry to hear about this. I'm glad you and your family are safe. If there is anything I can do to help you rebuild and recover don't hesitate to contact me. Take care.

Matt Ozsvath
Lizards of Oz
www.lizardsofoz.com

So sorry about your loss. Im a very small ball python breeder but if you decide to continue once you get your living situation together let me know if there is some small way I can help snake wise.

Shantel Calveneau
reptile.pro
simplysuperbsnakes@gmail.com

... I can't even put into words how I felt reading your post. It was pro exotics all over again in my mind. I won't lie just to seam tough, I cried when i read what happened.
May God bless you and help you recover from all this.

Grant,

We are so sorry to hear this news. We are so thankful you and your wife are safe. We know how amazingly hard you have worked with your animals and how much you loved them, we are very sorry for your loss. Please keep us posted so we can know how we can help you in any way.

Tracy and Dave

I'm so sorry to hear this news, Grant. It's good to hear that you and your family are okay though. Please let the community know in the coming days if there's anything we can do to help.
God Bless.

~ Shadera Lorrain

>>Friends
>>This weekend my home burned and with it all of my 400 animal collection including many visibles, DH. My wife and I made it out OK, but I did sustain second degree burns on my face and hands from a backdraft when I attempted a resuce. This was goin

Having lost much of my collection due to a heater issue this year, I feel part of your pain.

It sucks to hear, but today you and your wife are alive and safe. Everything else can be rebuilt. I know how hard that sounds right now. May your healing go well on your burns. you are in my thoughts
-----
Cindy Steinle
PHFaust
Visit kingsnake on Facebook!
Follow Kingsnake on Twitter!

I am very sorry to hear that you have had such a bad thing happen. I wish you a speedy recovery and we will pray for you.
-----
1.0 pied
1.1 Possible het pied
1.0 het albino
0.1 het albino possible het pied
1.1 albino
1.0 spider
0.1 pastel
1.0 mojave
0.1 normal
0.1 fire?
1.1 leopard gecko
1.2 bearded dragon
0.0.1 sulcata tortoise
0.1 black lab
1.0 cat
0.1 quarter horse
2.1 children
0.1 wife (15 years)
fish

As the owner of Vision Products, this fire and the other 3 or 4 fires that I have heard about in the last year are incredibly disturbing and have kept me up at night wondering what could have caused them.

I have talked with many of the players involved in some of these fires and a disturbing pattern seems to be forming and it involves cheap Chinese power strips used to plug all of the heating elements and thermostats into.

Back in the old days, power strips used to cost quite a bit and were made in the USA and had a metal case around where the numerous plugs were situated. Today, we all go to Home Depot or Walmart and grab 2 plastic power strips (made in china) for $4.99 and never give it a second thought.

We think nothing about paying $1000 for a rack, thousands of dollars for breeder Ball pythons and hundreds of dollars for high quality thermostats and then we splice the whole thing together using a plastic, made in China, $2.49 power strip.

On top of that, how many of us actually read the label on the power strip to see how many watts it will safely accept and then factor in exactly how many watts we are actually plugging into these things? I know that I have been guilty of overloading cheap power strips and I have even had two of them short out, melt the plastic case a bit and turn smokey black. Luckily, they were both on concrete floors with nothing close to set a fire.

I recently went out and bought some higher quality power strips and I got the smoke alarms connected into the alarm system and I feel a bit better about all the electrical gadgets that I have running at my facility.

Scott,
I worded the subject line the way I did to call attention to your post and the fact that you are the owner of Vision Products. I appreciate the post and the e-mail I received from you regarding this issue. Your e-mail to me was more specific than your post here, perhaps if you are able, could you go a little further in your explanation and where your conclusions came from.

I'm an electrical contractor, a friend is the chief electrical inspector here and he also teaches the continuing education courses contractors take to keep their licenses active. I have spoke to him about this. He doesn't think that GFI outlets would be of much help. I'm sure everyone has seen GFI outlets, they are in bathrooms and other locations around water, they have the reset buttons. My friend feels that arc fault circuit breakers are what would sense this type of electrical problem. I believe arc faults are also available in outlets and not just breakers, the supply house I deal with is checking availability of outlets. The breakers are used now in all new homes for living areas such as bedrooms and living rooms. They are designed to sense an "arc" just as the name implies. They are designed for sensing shorts and knicks in two wire cords such as lamps, alarm clocks and other typical small electrical devices, even power strips, heat tape or cable. If the old saying "You get what you pay for" applies here, arc fault circuit breakers must be pretty good. A normal single pole breaker is $5, an arc fault breaker is $80. When I learn more, I'll share the info.

As many people are aware of, the Pro Exotics fire was investigated by a bus load of professional fire investigators trying to determine how the fire might have started and who to pin the insurance claim on.

With a giant sigh of relief, I was pleased to receive a letter a couple of weeks ago from the insurance investigators stating that the probable cause of the PE fire probably had something to do with an overload in the power strips.

The bottom line is that a chain is only as strong as the weakest link and if we are going to run thousands of watts of power through our snake rooms, we had better make sure to eliminate ALL of the weak links in our chain.

Cheap Chinese plastic power strips are definitely a weak link that needs to be dealt with.

Better fire alarms and prompt alerting systems are also a must in any large scale breeding operation.

I hope we can all put our collective heads together and help devise a safer way to keep our animals warm.

Edited on February 17, 2012 at 13:05:27 by PHFaust.

I agree wit you guys to a certain degree, arc fault is better but be careful. I am a supervisor for a general contractor and work closely with my subs. We currently install arc faults in our panels because code tell me I have to but I am finding that homeowners are hiring electricians to remove the arc faults after co. They are putting back the older style breakers and here is why. The arc faults are do sensitive that they trip with the slightest spark. Any household item that sparks when it starts will or can trip them. Hairdryers, toaster ovens , drills and many others will trip them. My fear is that we all use on off thermostats and what happens when you incubator full of eggs cycles on and a flight spark happens inside the thermostat. The arc fault will trip and now hour incubator has no power till you catch it. I am building a house right now and every day one or two breakers are tripped every morning. Never the same ones. The homeowners have already ordered regular breakers to swap out as soon as we get the co. Just a thought on arc faults from the industry.

I'm an industrial electrician and haven't done any residential work in over ten years. I have never even seen an arc fault breaker. It is something new and they cover it in the continuing education classes. I know arc faults are sensitive. It was the same way with GFI's when they came out. They caused nuisance tripping and people changed them out for regular breakers. I would think that any electrical contractor that removes the arc fault breakers and installs regular breakers would be opening themselves up to full liability in case of a fire. I wouldn't want an arc fault for my incubator for the reasons you mentioned. I don't know yet if a t-stat would trip them. I'm considering an arc fault just ahead of each of my johnson control t-stats that control a row of racks. The only thing on the arc fault would be the t-stat and row of racks. I hope it will work and I can have a little more peace of mind, the thought of a fire is scary. I really like using the belly heat, but I'm seriously considering turning it all off for now and just adjusting the ambient temp in the room a little differently.

This is one of the boards where I mount the johnson control t-stat. The timer controls a little relay inside the box that works the night drop for the t-stat. The dimmer is to keep the heat cables from running at 100% and cycling on and off every few minutes. I could install an arc fault also, if it will work and not be too sensitive. I'll be doing some more research and experimenting.

I would go to google and type in

Commercial Industrial Power Strips

I am not sure if these are made in the USA, but it is a good place to start.

http://www.tripplite.com/en/products/product-series.cfm?txtSeriesID=836

Scott,

A few thoughts...

First, I don't think that letter was meant to be posted publicly.

Second, the findings in the letter are false. We did not attach power strips to plywood. But, this isn't the place to discuss these types of issues.We are working to clear up this matter currently.

Chad

Chad,

By all means, give me a call.

Sorry for your loss. Glad to here you and your family made it out alive .Hope youand your family have a fast recovery.

Has anyone had any luck locating a high quality metal power strip on-line that is made in the USA? I'd like to upgrade. Every layer of protection helps.

Matt Ozsvath
Lizards of Oz
www.lizardsofoz.com

Grant,

The thought of you loosing your collection hurts us all.

Thank God you snd your wife are OK.

I'm so so sorry.

-----
Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

Grant I am sorry to hear this. I am glad you made it out. You had a ton of great snakes that is really sad. Let me know if there anything I can do.

Brock Wagner

Grant, my friend......I am so sorry for your loss. As has been mentioned, least you made it out OK, along with your family. I can only imagine how difficult this is for you......if you need me, you know how to get ahold of me!

Brandon Boeke
Priceless Pythons

your ability to rise above "it" is IMPRESSIVE! I can not put into words how you must feel but I completely wilt at the thought of this loss.

Very, very SORRY!

Kevin
-----
"Satan™" is a registered trademark of NERD, Inc. Any copyright infringement is punishable by ETERNAL DAMNATION and some other terrible stuff.

I'm so sorry to hear of this tragedy.

I sincerely hope you recover from your burns and am happy to hear you and your wife are safe. Please know you are in our thoughts and if there's anything we can do as a community, please give us all a shout out.

Many hugs,

Amanda Rose

My heart is breaking for you. I'm happy you and your wife made it out okay. We hope you heal up quickly.

Grant,

We are also very sadened for your loss. Very happy that you and the family are safe. Hope you heal quickly.

Dan & Colette

Sorry to hear about this! I hope the best for you on your recovery.
Good luck and im sure we in the reptile industry will help you out with open arms.

Jonathan
Breeders Circle
-----
thanks
Jonathan
Breeders Circle

Grant, I am incredibly shocked to hear this. Fire thoughts, experiences and trauma are still quite fresh.

It was traumatic enough to lose our collection, you also lost your home. I can't imagine the pain involved there.

The community will support you. These early days may end up a blur, mine certainly are.

I am glad to hear your family is safe. The sun comes up tomorrow, and in time, these things will pass.

Find strength within, and from others. I wish you the very best.
-----
robyn@proexotics.com

ShipYourReptiles.com
Pro Exotics Reptiles

Very sorry to hear Grant! You had some amazing animals. I'm very glad to hear that you and your wife got out alive.

Hopefully you are able to rebuild and get back to where you once were.

Best Wishes!
Corey

Very, very sorry to hear about your loss. Thank you for sharing your story and the information. I know I will be checking all of my equipment and I'm sure others will benefit as well. We'll never know for sure but you may have saved someones collection or even their life.

Regards,
John Yezbak
North Coast Geckos

Grant,

I am so so very sorry for your loss! My Heart goes out to you and your Family. I wish you a speedy recovery.

Karl Buckler

Grant

I am so sorry to hear this. I know at this time it has to be incredibly tough but remember the most important part of all is you and your wife are safe.

Anything you need please let me know

Brent Beilstein
BRB Reptiles
217-653-2223

Grant ,I am very sorry for your loss ,but happy you and your wife are doing ok .I have always worried about having a fire ,I go in my snake building and all I see are extension cords , controllers , timers ,you know the drill . we all have them .I ended up installing arc fault circuit breakers on my snake building circuits .These breakers will trip when they detect a series or parallel arcing fault ,it doesen't have to be a positive short to trip this breaker . I bought mine a Home Depot for $41.00 each .They are very easy to install , maybe 5 miniutes tops .Anyone with any questions just ask
thanks
Terry M
terrysoddballs.com
terrysxtreme@aol.com e-mail
Vietnam Veteran 70-71

Grant so sorry to heard of your loss, very glad to know you and your wife got out safe. If there is anything I can do to help please let me know.
God bless to all
Rico feliciano

Grant,

My heart aches for what you're going through. I can't imagine what you're feeling right now. Just know that you're a part of an amazing community that is here to help and support you. Don't hesitate to ask if you need anything, we're here to help you get back on your feet.

Keep your head up Grant!

-----
Jason Royer
Royer Reptiles

Royer Reptiles on Facebook
_____

signature edited by forum admin. 3/29/07

I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't imagine what you are going through...I'm at a complete loss for words.