A fire that broke out at a shopping center in Dallas on Friday morning killed nearly 600 animals, most of which were small birds, authorities said.

The 579 animals in the pet shop at Plaza Latina in Northwest Dallas died from smoke inhalation, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesperson Jason Evans said in a statement. The flames from the fire never reached the animals. Chickens, hamsters, two dogs, and two cats also died, Evans said.

The two-alarm fire took about two hours and as many as 45 firefighters to extinguish around 11 am, Evans said.

“While DFR personnel did search and attempt rescue, all animals in the shop unfortunately perished due to smoke inhalation,” Evans said.

The structure of the large, one-story shopping center was severely damaged, including a partially collapsed roof; the cause of the fire was not immediately determined and is under investigation, Evans said.

According to CBS, Dallas firefighters performed CPR on a tortoise and revived a near-death puppy; other survivors included miniature pigs, guinea pigs, and rabbits. About two dozen animals survived, all of which were dumped at Dallas Animal Services to pick up the broken pieces.

Why were there animals for sale?
In 2022, Dallas passed an ordinance that banned the sale of animals — but that pertains only to puppies or kittens from commercial breeders.

However, the sale of birds, fish, reptiles, and other small animals are still allowed, even though there is still great cruelty in such sales. But we eat fish and birds, so it's OK.

Plaza Latina was founded in 2010 and is not a unique concept, consisting of a large building housing a number of small kiosks, like an indoor flea market. The owner of the business is Al Bargas, while the property owner is listed as Harry Hines Denton Dr, which is owned by Taherali Sadruddin who also seems to go by the name Taherali Arman.

The pet store inside is called Miguel's Pet Shop, owned by Miguel Perez — although the Plaza Latina directory and social media pages are furtive about its presence. Perhaps that is because the business has been cited at least once and was still selling cats and dogs, despite the city ordinance?

The Plaza Latina Facebook page has only one photo from the pet store which shows a cage that is unsustainably overcrowded with birds — including one lying on the bottom of the cage.

The pet store is also the sole cause of the negative ratings that Plaza Latina has received on Yelp, such as:

"… The only thing I did not like and was so very sad to see was the pet shop in there called Miguel's pet shop. All the animals are crammed in the cages with hardly any food or clean water and they don't have much room to move around. You can just see the animals are not taken care of properly and it's just about making the money. Besides that the market and the food is very good. I would love to give more stars but just can't."

and oh, here's one:

"Miguel's Pet Shop was absolutely horrendous. Some of the dogs in there didn't have any food or water and the heat in the store was unbearable. One of the puppies clearly had something going on with its eyes (they look really irritated). Just thinking about going back in there gives me chills, the workers there didn't seem to care about the animals (clearly)."