Two people and a dog suffered injuries after a laboratory cooking marijuana “honey oil” exploded in California Sunday, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Emergency responders were dispatched early Sunday to a motel in Los Angeles after receiving reports of a structural fire. Firefighters arriving on scene found multiple motel rooms engulfed in flames and people fleeing the site. After putting out the fire, investigators determined a probable laboratory for cooking marijuana honey or hash oil set up in the motel room exploded, reports KTLA 5.
Cooking a large quantity of hash oil usually requires using several butane tanks, which likely ignited and caused the explosion.
“It’s extremely dangerous,” Detective Scott Schulze with the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force told KTLA 5. “About one-third of the labs we go to have already exploded. In this case there’s two people in the hospital and there’s a dog that was taken to the vet because of injuries.”
Witnesses told police that they heard an audible bang and saw neighbors fleeing from the building. Investigators recovered what they described as sophisticated equipment, which helped authorities determine that the motel was probably being used to cook hash oil, reports NBC Los Angeles.
Police apprehended two suspects who suffered burn injuries during the incident. A third suspect may have fled the scene and is also suspected of having burn injuries. A dog also suffered burn injuries and authorities transported it to a veterinarian.
The explosion sparked fires in multiple motel rooms, causing an estimated $80,000 in damages.
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