Former Pro Chad Brown loses all but seven snakes
Former NFL and University of Colorado football player Chad Brown appears to have lost nearly his entire collection of snakes in a fire at his reptile store, Pro Exotics, in Littleton Colorado. According to a report on FOX31 in Denver, the fire started at around 5:30 a.m. September 26 and destroyed two units of the reptile store and caused damage to surrounding businesses in the industrial park. "Bad things are going to happen to us in life,” Brown, co-owner of the store with business partner Robyn Markland, told FOX31. “It's what we do about them, not what has happened to us.”
Brown lost approximately 2,000 African ball pythons in the fire, and estimates his losses in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the report. Six rat snakes and a Boa constrictor (Boa constrictor imperator) survived the fire. Brown first became interested in snakes while attending the University of Colorado after a friend gave him a snake. He then obtained more snakes and started breeding them while in college. The fire, which was reported after a police officer responded to a burglary alarm at the office complex, is under investigation.