The longtime head of the Broward Public Defender’s Office is picking up the pieces following a cataclysmic fire that claimed his home and several pets.

A suspected electrical fire left Howard Finkelstein’s Plantation residence in tatters on Saturday evening, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Monday. Although the Broward public defender and his family have been able to recover nearly all of their personal effects, the accident took the lives of Barnabus, Thumper and Dewey, two dogs and a cat who’d served as animal companions to the Finkelsteins for several years.