Largest California wildfire threatens marijuana-growing area
SACRAMENTO » California’s largest wildfire is threatening a marijuana-growing enclave, and authorities said many of the locals have refused to evacuate and abandon their maturing crops even as weather forecasters predict more hot, dry and windy conditions that could fan flames.
The wildfire called the August Complex is nearing the small communities of Post Mountain and Trinity Pines, about 200 miles northwest of Sacramento, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Law enforcement officers went door to door warning of the encroaching fire danger but could not force residents to evacuate, Trinity County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Nate Trujillo said.
“It’s mainly growers,” Trujillo said. “And a lot of them, they don’t want to leave because that is their livelihood.”
As many as 1,000 people remained in Post Mountain and Trinity Pines, authorities and local residents estimated Thursday.
Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger U.S. wildfires to global warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas, especially because climate change has made California much drier. A drier California means plants are more flammable.
The threatened marijuana growing area is in the Emerald Triangle, a threecounty corner of Northern California that by some estimates is the nation’s largest cannabis-producing region.
People familiar with Trinity Pines said the community has up to 40 legal farms, with more than 10 times that number in hidden, illegal growing areas.
Growers are wary of leaving the plants vulnerable to flames or thieves. Each farm has crops worth half a million dollars or more and many are within days or weeks of harvest.
One estimate put the value of the area’s legal marijuana crop at about $20 million.
“There (are) millions of dollars, millions and millions of dollars of marijuana out there,” Trujillo said. “Some of those plants are 16 feet tall, and they are all in the budding stages of growth right now.”
Gunfire in the region is common. A recent night brought what locals dubbed the “roll call” of cannabis cultivators shooting rounds from pistols and automatic weapons as warnings to outsiders, said Post Mountain volunteer Fire Chief Astrid Dobo, who also manages legal cannabis farms.
Mike Mcmillan, spokesman for the federal incident command team managing the northern section of the August Complex, said fire officials plan to deliver a clear message that “we are not going to die to save people. That is not our job.”