Drug making suspected in house fire
Police probe processing of marijuana resin in explosion that sent nine to hospital
Barrie police suspect criminal drugrelated activity was behind an explosion and fire at a house Friday night that sent nine people to hospital, four of them seriously injured.
Sgt. John Brooks said the explosion occurred at 59 Collette Cres. at 9:15 p.m., when a suspected drug-making operation caught fire in a garage. Fourteen people, including eight children, were inside the house.
It is suspected that marijuana resin was being extracted in the garage, where four people were present at the time of the explosion.
“I heard two big booms and saw the garage door blown apart,” neighbour Andrew Hansler told the Barrie Advance. “The boom shook the house — you could feel it . . . There were greeny-blue flames coming out from the garage. It went up fast.”
Four adults were taken to hospitals in Toronto and Hamilton with serious injuries, according to police. Two of the injured were 37, one was 20 and the other 24.
A police spokesperson said eight children, ranging from 3 weeks old to 15 years old, were also at the property at the time. At least five were treated at hospital for non-serious injuries and have since been released, according to the spokesperson. All of the children are now in the care of other family members. Residents of the house were described as a blended family.
Police are executing search warrants on the house.
It took 40 firefighters to bring the two-alarm blaze under control. The Office of the fire marshal and Barrie Fire and Emergency Services continue to investigate.
Cheryl Donaghan, who lives on the street, was watching television in her basement when she heard the explosion. “At first I thought (the noise) was construction . . . It was very scary,” Donaghan said, adding that when she went outside, she saw the garage completely engulfed in flames, with a car inside it exploding. Ayoung woman and her friend who rented the basement of the house ran to her driveway, Donaghan said. The young woman had been asleep at the time, and her friend called to her to get out.
Hansler told the Barrie Advance the house was split into two rental units and that he believed three college students lived in the basement, with a large family occupying the upstairs unit. “They made the garage smaller for access to the basement rental, but the only exit for it was from the garage,” he said.
Donaghan said she also spoke to a young boy Saturday morning who told her he was visiting a friend in the house, watching television upstairs, when the explosion happened. He told Donaghan he had to jump out a window and onto the back porch to escape.
“We knew it was a questionable house,” Hansler told the Barrie Advance. “One of the tenants was always going back and forth between this house and another one around the corner.”