“Pets Killed in One of Several Thursday Morning Fires in San Jose - KRON4” plus 1 more |
| Pets Killed in One of Several Thursday Morning Fires in San Jose - KRON4 Posted: 26 Aug 2010 12:22 PM PDT Pets Killed in One of Several Thursday Morning Fires in San Jose Created by Brian Shields on 8/26/2010 12:15:00 PM SAN JOSE (BCN) -- Three early morning fires in San Jose destroyed two homes, killed two dogs and caused $1 million in damage to an asphalt plant, a San Jose fire spokeswoman said. The first fire was reported at 3:51 a.m. at Reed and Graham, an asphalt production company at 690 Sunol St., near Interstate Highway 280. The one-alarm blaze caused more than $1 million in damage and disabled a mixing unit, which San Jose fire Capt. Debbie Ward said will affect the company's production. Shortly after 5 a.m., firefighters were called to 921 Rockdale Drive, where a two-alarm fire was burning at a home. Ward said a resident was woken up by his dog barking and saw smoke coming from a door that leads from the kitchen to the garage. He opened the door and found a small fire, which he tried to put out with a fire The fire extinguisher didn't work, so he closed the door to the kitchen, opened the garage door and battled the flames with a garden hose, Ward said. However, his wife then reopened the kitchen door, causing the fire to spread suddenly and burn out of control, Ward said. The man, his wife and their son were able to escape but the home was destroyed, she said. The couple suffered minor injuries but refused treatment. Firefighters were still at the scenes of those two fires when a larger blaze was reported at 910 Del Monte Place at 5:22 a.m. Ward said a woman was coming home from walking one of her dogs when she heard a loud boom. She put the dog back inside the house, where she thought it was safer, but then saw smoke coming from the garage and called 911, Ward said. Because they were busy with the other fires, it took firefighters about 10 minutes to arrive, which Ward said is "way outside" the department's target response time. The house was engulfed in flames when they got there, and firefighters focused on preventing the blaze from spreading to adjacent homes, Ward said. Firefighters were still trying to extinguish the three-alarm fire shortly before 8 a.m. Ward said it appears the woman's two dogs, a Weimaraner and a Rottweiler, died in the blaze. She said the loud boom the woman heard may have been caused by a ruptured gas line. PG&E crews have arrived at the scene, and Ward said about a dozen households were without gas service this morning. Other than the dogs that perished, no injuries were reported in any of the three blazes. Ward said the department hopes to have fire crews wrap up their response to all three fires soon. "What they have to do now is try to release the equipment as quickly as we can because we're running so short," she said. "It's difficult, especially for our dispatchers, to try to cover everything," Ward said. "We're going to do the best we can." (Copyright 2010, Bay City News, All rights reserved.)  Return
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Northern gators most likely pets - Northwest Herald Posted: 25 Aug 2010 03:33 AM PDT By TAMMY WEBBER - The Associated Press Local Video and Photos Quickcast: Aug. 26, 2010 Today's video Quickcast features stories about Rohm and Haas' annoucement that they will pay to tes... The Huddle Quickcast: Aug. 25, 2010 Quickcast: Aug. 24, 2010 CHICAGO – Two gators in the Chicago River. One strolling down a Massachusetts street. Another in bustling New York City. And that's just in the past few weeks. From North Dakota to Indiana, alligators are showing up far from their traditional southern habitats – including a 3-footer captured Tuesday in the Chicago River. But experts say it's not the latest sign of global warming. Instead, the creatures almost certainly were pets that escaped or were dumped by their owners. "People buy them as pets, and then they get too big, and at some point they decide they just can't deal with it," said Kent Vliet, an alligator expert from the University of Florida who tracks news media reports about the reptiles. In the past three years, he said, there have been at least 100 instances of alligators showing up in more than 15 states where they're not native. North Carolina is the farthest north that alligators are found naturally, Vliet said. A 3-foot-long, collar-wearing alligator was found Sunday strolling down a street in Brockton, Mass. On Monday, a 2-foot-long gator was spotted under a car in New York City. In fact, since spring, gators also have been found in Fargo, N.D., eastern Missouri, upstate New York, rural Indiana, Ohio and a Detroit suburb. After being spotted by boaters Sunday, Chicago's rogue gator drew scores of gawkers to the banks of the river. It peered from the water at the people staring back through binoculars, and swam away when a duck got too close. "It's not scary," 8-year-old Caleb Berry said Monday. "It was a baby, and it wasn't eating anything." The alligator eluded capture and apparently ignored traps baited with raw chicken until Tuesday, when a volunteer from the Chicago Herpetological Society was able to snare it with a net. Three weeks ago, the volunteer captured a 2½-foot gator in the same area. Vliet said such small alligators don't pose much of a threat to humans – preferring to dine on fish, snails, crayfish, frogs and small snakes – though they probably would bite if handled. "It's not like it's going to hunt you down," he said. The greater risk is to the reptiles, which probably wouldn't survive long in northern climates, experts said. "The animal is going to die a slow death," said Franklin Percival, a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Florida who says alligators most often are abandoned when they reach 3 feet or so and "people wonder why they made the early decision" to buy them. "Ecologically, it's not responsible, and maybe ethically it is not a good idea, either," Percival said. Alligators can be kept as pets in some states as long as the owner gets the proper permits, though some municipalities – such as New York City – ban them outright. Illinois stopped issuing such permits three years ago because of problems with illegal ownership and people releasing unwanted pets, said Joe Kath, endangered species manager for the state Department of Natural Resources. Cherie Travis, executive director of Chicago Animal Care and Control, said owning an alligator is a bad idea. "No one in Illinois needs to own an alligator. Period," Travis said. • Associated Press reporter Serena Dai contributed to this report. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Pets - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 comments:
Post a Comment