BAKERSFIELD, CA-- The Bakersfield Fire Department said it's looking into whether the manufacturing of drugs, may be to blame for the explosion and fire that ripped through a northeast Bakersfield apartment last week. That fire sent one to the hospital with severe burns, and left three other families displaced.
Investigators are looking into whether a tenant was making honey oil, a concentrated form of liquid marijuana. City narcotics detectives say manufacturing the drug can be explosive, if someone uses butane.
Witnesses say the fire last Thursday night started with an explosion that turned into flames.
"All I saw was just a huge fire," said David Simmon. "It looked like it was coming from the kitchen it was engulfed."
Simmon said he saw someone inside the apartment.
"I dashed in real quick and got him out," said Simmon. "But he was pretty burnt though second and third degree burns all over his arms his chest."
Simmon doesn't know what caused the fire but remembers seeing flammables inside the burning building.
"I saw some cans of things sitting in there," said Simmon.
Simmon said he thinks those cans were butane. The Bakersfield Fire Department is investigating whether a tenant was using these cans to make pot wax or honey oil, a process that undercover BPD narcotics detective William Hughes said can cause explosions.
"I would classify it as being as dangerous as a methamphetamine or any other type of dangerous drug lab," said Hughes.
Hughes said you can make this smokable cannabis by burning butane through a tube of marijuana and catching liquid THC at the bottom. But since butane is denser then air, if a room isn't vented, the flammable substance will linger.
"At some point if you have a spark just that alone can ignite the gases that are in the room," said Hughes.
In the case of that apartment, the Bakersfield Fire Department is investigating whether a garbage disposal spark ignited flames, but right now investigators say that's just a theory, a theory Simmon hopes isn't true.
"Fear doesn't take a part into it," said Simmon. "You just do what you gotta do."
The property manager says a tenant is still in Fresno with severe burns. 17 News could not reach the property owner for comment.
Detective Hughes says the process is catching on in Kern County.
"I want to say within the past five years we've probably dismantled and dealt with at least 10 labs in both the city and the county," said Detective Hughes.
Detective Hughes said the process of making honey oil is illegal. But he says it can be sold or owned as long as the person has a proper medicinal marijuana license. Fire investigators do not know if the pot wax process started this apartment fire.