Sunday, February 16, 2014

Antioch, CA House Fire Reveals a Marijuana Growing House

A house fire in Antioch, CA led investigators to discover an indoor marijuana growing house.  In January 2014, nearly 1,000 marijuana plants and cultivating equipment were seized by police after the place caught on fire.
A neighbor on Hidden Glen Drive saw the home’s electrical panel sparking and called 9-1-1 around 9:00 p.m.  Firefighters found a number of marijuana plants inside the home and called the police. Nobody was home at the time of the fire, so there were no injuries to report.  A power company worker inspected the electrical panel to see if it is possibly what caused the house to catch fire.
The fire appears to have originated in the home’s dining room, but was quickly brought under control.  The home’s owners rigged the home’s electrical system to bypass the utility meter and the set-up is what had caused the electric panel to overheat.

Police removed 960 plants from the two-story house located in the 4500 block of Hidden Glen Drive, after serving a search warrant on the home hours after fireman put out the blaze.  The one-alarm fire began in a wall behind a fuse box and fire crews had it put out within minutes of it starting, according to fire inspector Steven Aubert of the Contra Costa Fire Protection District.
Abuert stated, “What’s fortunate is that it was a brand new home and it contained a sprinkler system.  That kept the fire to its point of origin.  The damage sustained was very minimal.”
Morefield stated the house was part of a large-scale marijuana growing operation.  At the present time, police are still trying to identify and locate the owners of the home.   Anybody with information about the fire is urged to call the Antioch, California Police Department at (925) 779-6895.




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