Help Aiden and Dan - Reptile room house fire

Hi my name is Aiden Paredes and my partner is Daniel McGill. I came home from school on Wednesday December 13th 2023 to my reptile room on fire and full of smoke. Every single animal is alive and ok which is an insane miracle. I have a few animals that are sneezing a bit and a snake that developed a prolapse (the prolapse has been fixed and Bindi is okay right now). My cats (3 cats) are also a bit traumatized and scared. I am aware that my animals could develop health issues long term due to smoke inhalation and we are keeping a close eye on everyone. I lost a lot of reptile supplies and Dan lost a few plants, some things got trampled and thrown to make room for the hose to put out the fire. Plus everything in the entire house smells like smoke. It's so bad that Dan is unable to enter the apartment without having breathing issues or having an asthma attack, he is super sensitive to the smell, which scares me because every single thing in that house smells like smoke right now. Our power is out at the place so we also lost all of our food too. As of right now we are homeless. We do not know how long the apartment will be unlivable for, so we are looking for a new place to move too asap. Even when it repaired the reptiles are unable to come back. Everyone is alive and that’s what’s important. I am so grateful that all of my animals are still alive and with me. All of my geckos (21 geckos), my tegu and tree frog are safe at a friends house right now. All of my snakes (17 snakes) are safe at Reach out Reptiles in temporary cages. My cats are staying at my aunts for now. As of right now my dog is staying at our pet sitters place, although he can not stay here much longer and he will need somewhere to go long term. We are currently reaching out to rescues for him as it will not be possible to find a place to live in time with a reactive pit bull in the mix.

We need help right now. Getting the funds for housing and finding housing is the most important thing. Getting funds for food and replacing damaged items is also important. Every single thing is going to need cleaned to get the smoke smell out, we might lose a few things to the smell. Next is getting together all of the supplies needed to bring all of our pets home. I believe a lot of the cages can be saved as long as I can get the smell of smoke off of them. A few of the gecko cages were thrown around and broken to get to the fire. All of my heating equipment, thermostats, heat lamps, extension cords etc. are broken due to the water damage in the room. My enrichment areas for my animals were destroyed. Everything in the reptile room was thrown around while the fire was being put out so I lost a lot of random reptile essentials.

All we want is to be in a home with all of our animals asap, where we are all safe. This is the most traumatic event that I have ever been through, although I know that we are strong and we can all get through it and be even stronger.

We just need help getting life figured out and situated again.

All heat equipment was broken, including heat lamps that were not in use. A lot of the equipment on my shelves were knocked down and destroyed.

Smoke damage on my white cage, I bet its just as bad on all my other black cages too, just cant visually see it.

A few gecko cages got thrown and broken, I am so thankful all of the geckos were still in there cages even if they were broken.

My tegus dig box melted and there is a hole in the ground, you can see into the apartment below us. This is where the fire started. The heat emitter on the cage next to the dig box got too hot, I believe the thermostat malfunctioned causing it to overheat. The heat emitter was being held to the cage by a metal clamp and zip ties. I can't really be sure about exactly what happened, although I believe the heat emitter fell. This could only happen if the zip ties and clamps gave out first, the zip ties were definitely melted/ gone. Clamps were on the lamps still but they were no longer attached to the cage.

The mess... everything is wet too from the fire being put out. Baby gecko cages were 1/4 full of water. All electric things can not be used anymore.

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped out/ donated. All of the animals thank you too. We are so grateful that everyone is safe. It truly is a miracle that everyone is okay. I wasn't supposed to come home after school on Wednesday, I ended up taking off of work, I am so glad I went home. If I didn't catch it when I did this would be so much worse. Honestly this is best case scenario for a traumatic event like this.

Thank you again for reading and helping us out. I will keep everyone updated!