The homeowner removes a Gaboon viper from the home after a fire Monday afternoon. The snake, one of the most lethal in the world, was about 5 inches in diameter and about 5 feet long, Fire Chief Jeremy Wade said.
SAND SPRINGS, Okla. — Firefighters who responded to a house fire west of Sand Springs late Monday afternoon were concerned about the biting cold, but they quickly came to worry more about potential bites from a handful of venomous snakes — including some of the deadliest in the world — that were loose in the residence.
“Some of the firefighters are plenty brave about handling black snakes and such,” Fire Chief Jeremy Wade said, “but I don’t think anybody here is like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna go handle a venomous snake with 2-inch fangs.’”
Crews from B Company who responded to the fire found an abandoned house in front of a shop that had been converted into a home, Wade said. Heavy smoke and flames were visible, and the residents — three adults and two children — were getting themselves and their pets out of the burning home, he said.
Challenges were plentiful, Wade said. With the temperature hovering around 10 degrees, water from the firefighters’ hoses was freezing on contact, making walking more treacherous than usual. The water itself was difficult to come by in the rural area, but through a mutual aid agreement, the Keystone Volunteer Fire Department shuttled water in via two tanker trucks.
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But then the firefighters encountered a situation most had never seen before, Wade said. Besides the typical pets — the residents had five dogs and two cats — the house also held a baby pig and perhaps two dozen reptiles, including five to 10 snakes.
Sand Springs firefighters carry an aquarium from a residence near 41st Street and 162nd West Avenue on Monday afternoon after a fire in the home.
After crews had gotten the blaze largely under control, Wade said, “the fire was pretty much just smoldering, so the smoke had let up, and in the doorway, we saw what looked like a large snake.”
They alerted the homeowner, and “in his words, it was one of the most venomous snakes you can find,” Wade said. The homeowner said he would contain the snake, and “obviously we didn’t argue with him,” Wade said. “We allowed him to pull it out of the house.”
The snake — which Wade said was about 5 inches in diameter and about 5 feet long and actually was one of two such snakes in the house — is a Gaboon viper, a native of sub-Saharan Africa. One of the largest vipers in the world, it typically weighs more than 45 pounds and reaches lengths of more than 6 feet, according to the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Gaboon vipers have the longest fangs of any venomous snake, at 2 inches, and have the highest venom yield of any snake, reports show. A bite from one can easily be deadly, though bites are not common. The snake is reported to be quite docile and will not likely strike except in instances of agitation.
Temperatures hovering around 10 degrees meant water from the fire hoses froze on contact, including on firefighters’ helmets.
Sand Springs Fire Marshal Mike Nobles took little comfort in that fact, however.
“I would assume, in a house fire, that snake was a little agitated,” he said. “It certainly appeared so.”
The blaze started in a bedroom on the second floor, according to Nobles, and several glass aquariums containing the reptiles on the first floor collapsed when the structure’s second story fell in on them or they shattered from the intense heat of the fire, Wade said.
That’s how the snakes came to have the run of the place, leading to a few cases of the heebie-jeebies for firefighters, such as when a blanket that began moving around on the floor was found to have a large snake under it.
Sand Springs firefighters battle a blaze Monday afternoon at a residence near 41st Street and 162nd West Avenue. Among other pets, roughly two dozen reptiles, including some of the most venomous snakes in the world, were inside the home.
“It was like the Wild West out there for a bit,” Wade said.
He said the homeowner said he is a reptile breeder who also sells snake venom to manufacturers of antivenom, an antidote that medical professionals can give people who have been bitten by venomous animals to try to reverse the deadly effects.
A Gaboon viper bite could require 20 or more vials of antivenom, which cost more than $300 each, according to information from Reptile Gardens of Rapid City, South Dakota, purportedly the largest reptile zoo in the world.
But that’s if you could find the antivenom in the United States and get it here quickly enough to matter, Nobles pointed out.
He said firefighters over the years have encountered plenty of snakes and have done relocations of errant rat snakes found in attics, for example, but “nothing like this.”
He said Gaboon vipers, whose markings resemble the dead leaves that typically provide them camouflage, “are gorgeous snakes if you’re into snakes. They’re really cool.”
“But they’re not something I want to deal with again. This was hopefully a one-off for us.”
Nobles said the residence was a total loss and that the American Red Cross assisted the family who was living there.
All five dogs survived the blaze, but the pig and several snakes and other reptiles did not, Wade said, and two cats were unaccounted for but could have run off.
As for the cause of the blaze, Nobles said it would be listed as undetermined, primarily because the “room of origin,” the upstairs bedroom, doesn’t exist anymore.
Nothing about the fire looked or sounded suspicious, however, he said, adding that he didn’t plan any further investigation.
“Quite frankly, there were two rattlesnakes roaming through the house, and I didn’t want to go dig through it,” he said.
