After this morning's story about a bumbling crew of nautical drugrunners, the stoney seaside hamlet to our South is really making a name for itself as a place where would-be marijuana kingpins can get themselves into trouble even though the kind bud is more or less legal at this point. On Sunday afternoon, three men in their twenties accidentally blew up a small building while trying to cook up some hash oil.
Fire investigators believe the fire started when the butane used to extract the hash oil from marijuana built up due to the men's poorly-ventilated workspace in a small outbuilding next to an apartment building. The gas apparently exploded when the pilot light in a water heater kicked on. A neighbor who lives next door said she heard a "huge boom" before the three men ran out of the building. One of them was missing an eyebrow and another, whose shirt was apparently melting, asked the neighbor to "Please call 911."
All three men suffered life-threatening burns in the explosion and had to be taken to a burn center in San Jose. Meanwhile, fire crews had a hard time putting out the blaze because the butane canisters kept exploding. There was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a Volkswagen Bus parked outside.
Santa Cruz Sentinel sports reporter Julie Jag was on the scene of the Sunday's blaze:
