Pot farms face massive hit from major blazes

No insurance for damaged plants, burned product

GLEN ELLEN, Calif. — Desperate to see if wildfires had damaged his farm, Marcos Morales gunned his four-wheel-drive station wagon along the hidden dirt roads that crisscross Sonoma County vineyards.

After evading police roadblocks and passing vintners’ well-tended pools and houses, he arrived to a disheartening sight: Scores of his marijuana plants had been destroyed, and a barn that held 1,600 pounds of ready-for-market pot was a smoldering ruin.

The fires that destroyed Northern California wineries also took a toll on the region’s marijuana farms, which were about to begin an important harvest less than three months before the nation’s largest recreational pot market opens for business in January.

Morales and the workers who made it around the roadblocks Sunday worked to cut down 2,500 smoke-damaged plants, which will be worth far less than the top dollar he had hoped to get for premium bud.

“It’s not good,” he said Sunday. “But we’ll be OK.”

At least 31 marijuana farms were destroyed and many more damaged, according to the pot industry’s California Growers Association. That number is expected to rise significantly once evacuation orders are lifted and farmers are allowed back to their property.

Unlike neighboring wineries, marijuana farmers do not have crop insurance because the plant is still listed as an illegal drug under federal law.

The estimated losses do not count indoor grows, backyard greenhouses and converted garages lost in Santa Rosa, the center of Sonoma County’s blossoming marijuana industry.

Many of the growers who suffered the greatest losses were working to obtain licenses to grow recreational pot once state regulators starting issuing permits on Jan. 1.

Farmers with local permits to grow medical marijuana are expected to receive the first state licenses.

But those damaged by fire are now concerned they may lose out if they don’t get back up and running quickly.

In Mendocino County, growers complained that law enforcement officials refused to escort them to their farms so they could water plants, even though the same courtesy was extended to wineries.