By Kevin Jenkins
TheSpectrum.com
ST. GEORGE, Utah — St. George firefighters and an animal control officer carried one python after another out of a trailer on Middleton Drive after the home caught fire Thursday morning. The snakes ranged in length from about 4 feet to 18 feet long.
“Most of them were pretty big,” St. George Animal Control Officer Kristeen Checketts said.
Smoke and flames were coming from the front of the trailer when firefighters arrived following the 911 call at 10:53 a.m., Deputy Chief Kevin Taylor said.
“We just knocked the fire down and then ventilated it and removed the animals as quickly as we found them,” Taylor said.
Rescue personnel spent more than an hour removing the reptiles from the approximately 20-foot-long trailer, two to three people teaming up to carry them out.
Checketts said the home-owner reported he had 19 snakes. Eleven of the snakes survived the fire, she said, as the homeowner, who was identified by St. George RV Park owner Gary Henshaw as Mark Knight, worked feverishly in an apparently futile effort to resuscitate a 12th by massaging it and blowing into its mouth through a plastic pipe.
Knight simultaneously spoke with an insurance company representative on his cell phone, occasionally stopping for an outburst of emotion.
“Oh, my baby,” he said as he wept over one of the pets.
“It looks like he’s going to be displaced tonight,” Taylor said after assessing the damage to the home. “It’s hard to get information out of him. He’s pretty distraught over his loss.”
Fire Chief Robert Stoker delivered a small Zions Bank bag with some basic necessities such as a toothbrush and shaving kit, which Taylor gave to Knight.
“It was an Eagle Scout project. Somebody made those up to give out to the victims,” Taylor said.
St. George Fire Capt. Jason Whipple said the cause was determined to be the failure of a heat lamp in one of the snake cages.
Henshaw said Knight maintained a number of heat lamps in the affected corner of the trailer.
“It was so bright in there it was like the sun coming up,” Henshaw said. “Those snakes cannot handle cold.”
Checketts said the fire was deemed to be accidental and there was no finding of animal cruelty.
Henshaw said Knight is a former New York City firefighter and paramedic who moved into the RV park about two years ago following a period living in a Bureau of Land Management area on the Arizona Strip.
Knight wore a jacket with the word “Phelps” in large letters across the back and New York Firefighter patches on the sleeves as he worked to revive a handful of the pythons.
Taylor said he did not remember encountering a similar incident involving such a large number of big snakes.
“Not like this. ... We run into unusual pets from time to time,” he said.
Checketts said most of the snakes were in cages but the larger ones probably were not because there were not enough cages to house each snake.
Henshaw said one of the snakes escaped a couple of years ago and police responded after a resident reported it under her trailer.
“We had about 10 people chasing that thing around with flashlights,” he said, adding that the pythons are not generally considered dangerous and Knight appears to know what he’s doing.
“He’s licensed to give them serums, just like a doctor. They get respiratory problems sometimes,” he said.
Henshaw said the park limits where residents can live with dogs, but otherwise there are no restrictions on pets. Knight only had a couple of the reptiles when he moved in, Henshaw said, but began taking in others over time.
“He’s about the nicest guy in the world. ... A few of (the neighbors) are trying to cheer him up but it’s like he’s losing his family,” Henshaw said.