30 Puppies Killed In Mall Pet Store Fire

Ready for the day’s most depressing story? Close to 30 puppies were killed last night when a fire broke out at a Miami strip mall.

According to WSVN-TV, the 2-alarm fire started at about 10:30 pm last night. The fire affected several businesses in addition to the Beverly Hills Puppies pet store.

Miami Fire Rescue Lieutenant Ignatius Carroll said:

“As we were able to bring this fire under control, we started to do our search to make sure nobody was inside. We noticed that a business here sells puppies and unfortunately we had numerous puppies inside that did not make it.”

Carrol said that firefighters were able to pull a few cages from the fire and did manage to save a few puppies. Still, about 30 French and English bulldogs died from smoke inhalation.

Martin Leon, the owner of Beverly Hills Puppies, said that in addition to the loss of the puppies, the fire was financially devastating. Leon said that each of the puppies was valued at about $2000 and that he did not have insurance to recover expenses.

Leon said:

“We’ve been destroyed, because of the fire. The puppies passed away, and second of all, there is no insurance to cover it.”

Fox News reports that it took firefighters more than an hour to put out the fire.