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My tortoise and my lizards have extended time out in the sunshine in the summer. Once fall arrives, it's time to start getting everyone indoors. Here in New York it is not good reptile weather after late September. The lizards have their own set ups, but the sulcata tortoise, being as big as she is, is in a pen in my boiler/laundry room. I have 80-degree temperatures in that room for most of the winter, with an occasional drop when the weather is really cold. Most of the animals can take that and I don't keep the heat too high at night. I always keep the tortoise on fresh timothy or alfalfa hay and I switch off in the winter when she isn't getting the green grass of the lawn to graze on. In the past few winters I used an UVB/heat bulb over her pen, but always had a problem getting it to stay put. I use the metal light bulb holders with the clips and it seems they always slip and fall sideways directing the heat to the other direction or worse into the plastic wall of the pen. I meant to buy a holder to keep the light fixture upright, but kept putting it off.

I was doing laundry at the time in the basement and that day the tortoise was hiding under her hay, so I adjusted the UVB/heat bulb in her direction, using the clip on the back of the fixture to attach it to my husband's workbench, which is along side her pen. Ten minutes later, I was supposed to leave to go food shopping, but had put it off a bit to go online and check my email. Thank God I did, because that little sidetrack probably saved my house. I was upstairs for maybe five minutes, tops, when the downstairs fire/smoke alarm went off. I was busy on the computer and it took about three seconds to realize what it was. I was thinking it was the alarm on the washer when it goes out of balance. When it finally hit me I took off for the basement. I swear I took the last four steps in a leap, twisting my calf muscle in the process. When I rushed into the reptile room the lamp had popped off and was lying fully on and operational down in the hay in the tortoise enclosure. The room was smoky and the hay was blackened and smoldering. I grabbed the light and put it on the floor and grabbed the entire armful of blackened hay and ran and dumped it in the slop sink and turned on the water. It had not ignited in a flash, but I believe if I had been a few minutes later it would have flashed into flames. The entire pen, my laundry room with hanging clothes and all my lizard litter enclosures would have been on fire. My basement ceiling is only six feet, so if the hay had blazed upwards and caught the ceiling I would never have been able to stop it.

Of course I was a shaky mess after all of this, and the tortoise, ET, was casually sitting in the pen looking at me as if to ask what I did with her hay. Thank God for smoke alarms! I shudder to think what would have happened to her. So the lessons to be learned here include, have a smoke/fire detector in your reptile area, as with all the heat lamps you can't be too careful. Don't clip lamps where they will start a fire if they come loose and pop off. I bought a lamp stand that day. Make sure you have a fire extinguisher handy. I do, but the slop sink was closer and easier because of the smoldering hay. I worked for years at a fireman's training center in Long Island so I know how fast fire can spread. Hay is highly combustible and that's why so many barn fires end in tragedy. So before you get all your critters winterized, check everything twice for fire safety. The only bright spot of this entire story was that I was so traumatized by the event that I had to break into the left over Halloween candy I was saving for the nieces and nephews. After all, nothing calms the nerves better than chocolate!

Copyright 2002 by Susan Jacob. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

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