This is the kind of call that would give me nightmares for months.



From the Times Union

WATERVLIET -- Frank Cruz rushed home Thursday evening just in time to see fire consume his roof. He fought back tears on the sidewalk as his belongings burned. Then a firefighter handed him a seven-foot snake.
Cruz and his wife, Kelly, keep dozens of reptiles -- 78, by one count -- in their two-family home at 1401 Sixth Ave. as part of a private rescue service. Despite intense heat that destroyed the roof and hoses shooting water at pressure high enough to knock shingles off the house, the animals survived.


"It's a miracle," he said. "We're not rich -- far from it. And we just lost all that we worked for. My family's safe -- that's all that matters. But each one that survives helps a lot."

In the back of a van, Cruz and his co-workers at Northeastern Masonry and Chimney struggled to find enough containers, cages and pillow cases to contain the menagerie: two red-tailed boa constrictors named Al and Peg; Keno, a cat-sized lizard called a monitor; a tank of red-bellied toads; and Zeus, a 12-foot albino boa constrictor.

The fire broke out shortly before 4:29 p.m. Joey Keller, Frank and Kelly's sixth-grade son, had just returned home from school and sat down to do his homework. He noticed the smoke and called 911, then his mother to tell her the roof was on fire.

Kelly was at Albany Medical Center Hospital visiting her older daughter, Emily, who has been hospitalized since Monday. She rushed home to comfort her son.

A crowd of dozens -- including a number of children who had to be shooed to the curb by police officers -- gathered. The rumor passed from lip to lip, inflated by the children: there were all kinds of critters inside. A dozen. No, fifty. No, one-hundred-fifty.

Watervliet Fire Chief Don Clickner said he was told 78 animals were inside. Three dogs escaped. Several cats did not. The final tally of reptiles was not immediately known. Clickner said firefighters were very surprised to find the menagerie.

"One of my guys came out ... and said, 'I just saw a seven-foot snake,' " Clickner said. "It's not something you do every day fighting a fire, especially not in Watervliet."

Frank Cruz said the reptile rescue is his wife's passion. They drive hundreds of miles to adopt them from people who purchase them and don't realize how much care they will require. They try to place them in good homes when possible, but it's difficult.

Mayor Mike Manning said he wasn't aware of any laws regulating reptiles in homes, but "that's something we'll have to look at. We have a law to cover farm animals, but I don't think that would cover this."

A Red Cross spokeswoman said four others were displaced by the blaze and being helped. Clickner said the flames appeared to have started in a bedroom, but the exact cause remains under investigation.

No one was injured, Clickner said.

Jimmy Vielkind can be reached at 454-5043 or by e-mail at jvielkind@timesunion.com.