Our pet store burnt down :( A lot of animals are severely injured.

[Medusa]

How awful! My imagination runs wild w/stories like this, thinking of how terrified the animals must have been. Prayers are going up right now for all the injured and for your friends.

[phesina]

I am so very sorry. That is heartbreaking.

[chocolatepuppy]

How awful. Many prayers for both the humans and animals involved.

[3Catcondo]

I'm so sorry to hear this. Prayers going for the animals and the owners. May those that passed RIP.

[Asiel]

That's just horrid. I've watched videos of wild animals trapped by fire in forests and I can't bear to think of what these caged animals felt before dying..

[Lilith Cherry]

I am so very sorry for all concerned; what a tragedy!

[luckies4me]

Fire pet shop’s latest woe |
About 100 animals died in the blaze, the most recent in a string of troubles for the owners of Zany Zoo Pets
By Mark Baker

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Saturday, Nov 7, 2009

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News: Local: Story
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An early morning fire on Friday that killed about a third of the animals at their west Eugene pet shop has owners Nate and Abbie McClain wondering what else can possibly go wrong.

Zany Zoo Pets — “The ‘Fun’ Pet Store” — was burglarized to the tune of about $3,000 worth of cash and other items — including a digital camera with the first two months of their daughter’s life documented on it — in the middle of the night in August, the couple said. Thunderstorms on Sept. 12 caused flooding at the store.

And now this.

“Each time this happens, I think, ‘That problem’s out of the way,’ then something else happens,” Nate McClain said as employees from the Springfield Servpro branch, a fire and water cleanup franchise, shoveled shattered glass, insulation and other debris.

Nate McClain estimated that 100 animals — reptiles, birds and feeder mice — may have been killed in the fire that was sparked sometime before 3 a.m.

“It’s hard to estimate,” he said. “Two dozen reptiles, maybe; 20 or so birds; a lot of feeder mice. It may be over 100.”

Three puppies and a couple of cats boarded at the shop survived, he said.

An estimated $100,000 damage was done to the building, a strip mall in the 3600 block of West 11th Avenue, and $25,000 to the contents, Eugene Fire Department spokesman Glen Potter said.

The fire was caused by an overloading of electrical circuits in the pet shop’s reptile room, Potter said. Too many electrical cords most likely were plugged into one circuit, or it was a misuse of extension cords, he said.

“There was more plugged in than should have been, I can say that,” Potter said.

Investigators will continue to check for clues, he said.

The shop regularly kept heat lamps plugged in to keep the reptiles warm, but that had never been a problem before, Abbie McClain said.

A general contractor from Salem who was doing a job in the area saw smoke coming from the building and called 911, Nate McClain said.

“It seemed to be mostly contained in (the reptile) room,” he said. “It didn’t spread to the rest of the store.”

The fire, which drew 29 firefighters, five engines and two trucks, plus two medic units to treat the injured animals, was reported under control at 3:44 a.m., Potter said.

Nate McClain said he arrived about 4 a.m. and had trouble getting to the shop because there were so many emergency vehicles. He parked at the bank across the street, he said.

Firefighters already had evacuated all of the animals, and sent many to a 24-hour emergency veterinary clinic a couple of blocks away. Others were being treated in the parking lot, McClain said.

Several aquariums full of dead animals sat covered in an empty storefront next to the pet store late Friday morning.

The Jasper’s Deli on the other side of the pet shop was closed Friday. The deli’s glass door was shattered.

“If there was damage to that deli, it was caused by our structural investigation,” Potter said. Firefighters most likely created an entry in the deli to check for fire damage on the roof or other parts of the strip mall, he said.

Most of the hundreds of animals that survived, including snakes, fish, turtles, bushbabies, hamsters, ferrets, frogs, even a 2-foot alligator, are being housed at a friend’s warehouse, Nate McClain said. The couple hopes to reopen in three or four weeks, Abbie McClain said.

The shop was insured, but the McClains are not sure how much of the damage will be covered under the policy.

“If insurance doesn’t cover this, there have been a lot of other terrible things that we’ve faced and gotten through,” Nate McClain said. “I’m not going to give up. The job market’s too lousy.”

The building is owned by a trust based in Big Bear Lake in California, according to Lane County property records.
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