Pets OK After Fire Scare at Big Bend Animal Hospital

RIVERVIEW, FL — Pets and people alike are OK following a Friday morning fire scare at Big Bend Animal Hospital.

According to Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, firefighters received a call about smoke inside the 11321 Big Bend Road building around 7:08 a.m. When first responders arrived on the scene, workers were evacuating animals from inside the clinic. Firefighters determined the smoke was coming from inside a treatment area in the back of the clinic and detected an electrical odor.

Firefighters called on TECO and then used a thermal imaging camera to track down the source of the smoke. As it turned out, the smoke was coming from a faulty ballast in a fluorescent light in the back of the treatment room, fire rescue wrote in an email to media.

With the source of the concern traced down and tackled, firefighters helped staff bring the animals back inside the hospital. There were four cats and three dogs in the hospital’s care at the time of the incident.

All of them are “in good spirits,” the email noted.

Photos courtesy of Hillsborough County Fire Rescue