dankillerbs
Active Member
Just wondering why this thread was closed? *ANSWERED BELOW*
Read THIS if you smoke BHO*
- Thread starter dankillerbs
- Start date
Matt Rize
Hashmaster
This article is called
BURNED BY THE WAIT
The story is that the cops found the blast tubes, but the people didn't admit it was BHO, so they had to call the bomb squad, this gave the fire time to spread.
ON THE COVER / BY ZACH ST. GEORGE
Burned by the Wait
Legal experts say Eureka police could have preserved evidence without delaying firefighters
(FEB. 23, 2012) Five minutes from the judges house, Eureka police detective Todd Wilcox got a phone call. Hurry it up, the caller told him the fire had restarted. The firefighters needed to get back inside while there was still a building to save.
Hours earlier, firefighters had all but extinguished the fire in Apartment Three of the building on the northwest corner of Church and Pine streets in Eureka. They were nearly finished with their room-to-room check for hidden fires and hotspots when one of them discovered what looked like a pipe bomb in a closet. They retreated to wait for the bomb squad.
The front of the complex is a Victorian that faces Pine Street; the back is an annex with several apartments. PHOTO BY HOLLY HARVEY
At around 8 p.m., a little less than an hour after firefighters had arrived at the fire, Wilcox was at home relaxing. His shift commander called him and told him about the fire and the possible bomb. He was on the on-call officer on that night of Jan. 31; the investigation into the bomb would be his.
Firefighters had also seen ammunition inside the apartment, the shift commander told him. Wilcox drove from his house to Eureka police headquarters, then over to the scene of the fire, arriving between 8:30 and 9 p.m. He worried that if he let the sheriffs bomb squad go into the apartment without a search warrant, whatever other evidence they found would be useless in court. The fire looked to him like it was out, he said, although he didnt check with the firefighters to be sure. There were no visible flames, he said. I wasnt looking at a building that was burning, in the ordinary sense. He decided to seek a warrant.
Wilcox took some time crafting the three-page typed warrant application, or affidavit. According to the affidavit, one of the occupants of Apartment Three admitted to another Eureka police officer that she and her roommate had been using butane to make hash oil. Wilcox predicted in his affidavit, based on his experience from 19 years on the force, that authorities would find drug paraphernalia and firearms, along with evidence that Apartment Threes inhabitants had been making hash.
His affidavit referred to the fire in the past tense, as if it were completely out, although Wilcox expressed concern that the ammunition might cook off in the heat.
While Wilcox worked on the document, the fire rekindled and spread to the other apartments. The delay doubled or tripled the amount of damage to the building and left 11 people temporarily homeless.
Worse still, it might have been for nothing. Wilcoxs fears that he would lose evidence were unwarranted, say legal experts. I would have told them, Go in and get the goddamn bomb out, said UC Berkeley law professor Jesse Choper. In cases when police dont have time to get a warrant, Choper explained, there are circumstances that make it legally excusable to enter someones property warrantless. Those are called exigent circumstances. He also said that on the bomb squads way to the bomb, whatever evidence of other criminal activity that was in plain view would be usable in court. Only after the squad had collected the bomb and gathered up any plain view evidence would it be necessary to withdraw and get a warrant to search the rest of the apartment.
Local defense attorney Neal Sanders said that it would be hard to find a better example of a time when police should have forgone a search warrant. If theres a bomb and it has the potential of going off, I cant imagine a more appropriate situation for the police to go in without a warrant, he said. Once the police dealt with the bomb and made sure the firefighters were able to do their job, then they could pull back and get a warrant to search the rest of the apartment for any evidence that wasnt in plain view, said Sanders.
[][][][]
Cindy Thompson was at home in Apartment Two, sitting at her computer, when she heard the fire begin. The pictures on her wall swung from the force of a blast, and next door she could hear screams and loud pops, like firecrackers. Her cat Pooter bolted under bed and hid.
Thompson and her roommate stumbled downstairs, out into the pouring rain. Firefighters were dragging up hoses and giving first aid to one of the people from Apartment Three, who was badly burned.
All of a sudden, the firefighters told everyone to get away from the building. Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Ken Woods said that one of his firefighters had discovered a suspicious object in the closet. Woods went to take a look at it and immediately ordered everyone out of the building. It was a 6- or 8-inch galvanized pipe with end caps, Woods said. It looked like every picture of a pipe bomb you see.
Thompsons roommate tried to go back upstairs for the cat, but firefighters told her that that it was unsafe.
Woods pulled his fire crews back to a 70-foot perimeter. The building was still steaming, he said, but there was no fire suspected and little or no smoke. At the time of the discovery of the device, firefighters had just begun their overhaul stage, when they go room to room and check for hot spots and fires in hidden spaces, visually and with a thermal imaging camera. If not for the suspected bomb, they wouldnt have left the building until they were positive that the fire was completely out. Even though those precautions were delayed, Woods said, the situation seemed stable enough that he let some of the firefighters go back to the station.
The bomb squad showed up around 9:30 p.m. At that point, Woods said, the squad could have gone into the apartment, no problem. The squad prepared its bomb removal robot and then sat tight, waiting for the warrant.
Volunteers from the Red Cross arrived and started handing out blankets to the apartment buildings soaked inhabitants. Thompson said that firefighters suggested she accept the Red Crosss offer to pay for a hotel room; there was no sense standing out in the rain any longer. When Thompson and her roommate left for the hotel, they were shaken up, but they expected to go home the next morning.
Shortly before 10 oclock, however, a breeze brought the fire raging back. The wind picked up significantly out of the southwest, said Assistant Fire Chief Bill Gillespie. If the firefighters had been able to complete their overhaul stage, the wind would have posed little danger. They hadnt, however, gotten a chance to send a crew into the attic to make sure it wasnt burning. The wind blew straight through the busted-out windows and through the hole that firefighters had cut in the roof to vent noxious gases. It woke the dormant embers in the attic.
From behind their perimeter, the firefighters doused the building with their high-pressure hoses, Gillespie said, but they could do little to stop the swiftly spreading flames.
From there, the fire raged through the upstairs apartments and into the Victorian section that fronts Pine Street. We were as close as we dared, working on it from all four sides, Gillespie said. It was burning pretty hard.
Meanwhile, Wilcox had finished writing out the request for a search warrant. A little after 11 p.m. he called the judge, who was asleep, and told him to get his pen ready. On his way to the judges house, one of the firefighters called with the bad news. Well, Im almost there, he remembers saying. Just before midnight, signed warrant in hand, Wilcox phoned the bomb squad to give it the go-ahead.
Although parts of the building were still on fire, a member of the bomb squad suited up. Chief Woods decided that the bomb tech, in his heavy gear, would have trouble safely navigating his way to the bomb. I was concerned that we had holes in the floor, Woods said. I didnt want the bomb tech in his clumsy bomb suit falling through into the first floor. Wearing only his fire suit, Woods led the way.
When we got through into the closet, it was still burning, he said. The ceiling had fallen in, the closet doors had fallen in, and the fire was still in there. He cleared away the debris and pointed out the pipe. The bomb tech took one look and grabbed it. It wasnt a bomb, he said, but an instrument for making hash oil.
At 12:30 a.m. Woods and the bomb tech emerged from the smoke and told the crowd of more than 20 firefighters that they could go back to work.
In her room at the Best Western, Thompson got a good nights sleep. She hasnt slept that well since, she said. Nobody called her to tell her that her apartment had burned. When she showed up there the next morning and saw the broken windows and the blackened eaves, she couldnt understand. She never would have left without her cat, she said, if she had known there was any danger. Thompson had had Pooter a white cat with gray-striped sides, whod been born with just one eye for almost three years, since he was a kitten.
Thompson, 56, is at her sons trailer in King Salmon, where shes been since the Red Cross stopped paying for her hotel room. Shes sitting out front, smoking a cigarette, using her car as a windbreak. Her dirty-blonde hair is gray in parts, and she wears sunglasses over her prescription glasses. A handicapped sign hangs from her cars rearview mirror, and a cane rests against the passenger seat. Why didnt the fire department or the police let her know when her apartment was burning, she wonders. And why havent they contacted her since?
I lost everything, just everything, she said. Thompson managed to make it out with her purse, and luckily her car wasnt in the garage where its normally parked, but her only clothes are the ones shes wearing.
Recently the landlord called her to tell her that the cleanup crew was going through her apartment did she want to come help? Thompson thought of Pooter, somewhere amid her blackened, soaked possessions, and declined. I cant get thoughts of my cat out of my head, she said. Man, I miss him.
Barbara Caldwell, the executive director of the Red Crosss Humboldt Chapter, said that her organization helped Thompson, her roommate, and a family that lived downstairs from Apartment Three. It provided them with hotel rooms, blankets and food, and it connected them with local social services. The Red Cross cant, however, do anything long-term, said Caldwell, and after a week or two the victims had to find other arrangements. Were basically a shoulder [to lean on], she said.
Thompson said that after the fire, Todd Petty, her landlord, offered to give her back her deposit, to help her get her life on track. She turned him down. When Thompson and her roommate moved in nearly four years ago, she remembers telling Petty that she planned on being there forever. She wants to move back in once the apartment is repaired, which could be months away.
Petty said he and his wife were devastated by the fire, but hes most concerned with the fate of his tenants. These poor people that lost absolutely everything they had, he said. My God, its their lives in this place.
Hes not happy about the delay for the warrant. Whoever made the decision to preserve evidence made an ill-advised choice, said Petty. It was not a well thought-out position, and the results were not good. He said that the damage to his four-unit apartment building is estimated to be at least $400,000, not including the value of his tenants possessions. Pettys insurance will cover the cost of rebuilding but wont help the tenants. Under the circumstances, the preservation of property should have taken precedence over the court case, he said.
Detective Wilcox said that as the detective in charge of the scene, he wanted to be sure that whatever he found inside the apartment would be admissible in court. He thought the fire was out, although he admitted that he based that on his own judgment rather than that of the firefighters. I dont think anybody said [the fire] was out, Wilcox said. I know nobody said we need to immediately resume firefighting efforts. He didnt think the bomb was a sufficient exigent circumstance to allow him to enter Apartment Three without a warrant.
Could it have been interpreted differently? Wilcox asked. Almost certainly. However, he said, Based on what I had at the time, that was the best decision I could make.
[][][][]
In the end, the fire damaged much of the evidence that officers collected remnants of plastic bags and vegetation, can with remnants of plastic bottles with vegetation material and liquid material in them, remnants of pressure cylinders, according to the search warrant return paperwork. Along with the metal pipe for making hash, the document said, the cops also found four guns and marijuana.
Two weeks after the blaze, the windows on the blue, two-story building are boarded up, and piles of charred, soaked trash sit in the driveway.
A disaster cleanup companys sign is planted in the front yard of 1628 Pine. Petty said that the cleanup crew has hauled away multiple truckloads of waterlogged drywall, soaked ceiling panels, and ruined belongings. All the interior walls and ceilings will have to be replaced it will probably be at least six months before the apartments are habitable, he said.
The door of Apartment One is ajar. Its directly below Apartment Three, where the fire started. It smells like burnt plastic, and water drips from the holes in the ceiling. A kids stuffed horse sits in the window, forgotten in the rush of the fire.
BURNED BY THE WAIT
The story is that the cops found the blast tubes, but the people didn't admit it was BHO, so they had to call the bomb squad, this gave the fire time to spread.
ON THE COVER / BY ZACH ST. GEORGE
Burned by the Wait
Legal experts say Eureka police could have preserved evidence without delaying firefighters
(FEB. 23, 2012) Five minutes from the judges house, Eureka police detective Todd Wilcox got a phone call. Hurry it up, the caller told him the fire had restarted. The firefighters needed to get back inside while there was still a building to save.
Hours earlier, firefighters had all but extinguished the fire in Apartment Three of the building on the northwest corner of Church and Pine streets in Eureka. They were nearly finished with their room-to-room check for hidden fires and hotspots when one of them discovered what looked like a pipe bomb in a closet. They retreated to wait for the bomb squad.
At around 8 p.m., a little less than an hour after firefighters had arrived at the fire, Wilcox was at home relaxing. His shift commander called him and told him about the fire and the possible bomb. He was on the on-call officer on that night of Jan. 31; the investigation into the bomb would be his.
Firefighters had also seen ammunition inside the apartment, the shift commander told him. Wilcox drove from his house to Eureka police headquarters, then over to the scene of the fire, arriving between 8:30 and 9 p.m. He worried that if he let the sheriffs bomb squad go into the apartment without a search warrant, whatever other evidence they found would be useless in court. The fire looked to him like it was out, he said, although he didnt check with the firefighters to be sure. There were no visible flames, he said. I wasnt looking at a building that was burning, in the ordinary sense. He decided to seek a warrant.
Wilcox took some time crafting the three-page typed warrant application, or affidavit. According to the affidavit, one of the occupants of Apartment Three admitted to another Eureka police officer that she and her roommate had been using butane to make hash oil. Wilcox predicted in his affidavit, based on his experience from 19 years on the force, that authorities would find drug paraphernalia and firearms, along with evidence that Apartment Threes inhabitants had been making hash.
His affidavit referred to the fire in the past tense, as if it were completely out, although Wilcox expressed concern that the ammunition might cook off in the heat.
While Wilcox worked on the document, the fire rekindled and spread to the other apartments. The delay doubled or tripled the amount of damage to the building and left 11 people temporarily homeless.
Worse still, it might have been for nothing. Wilcoxs fears that he would lose evidence were unwarranted, say legal experts. I would have told them, Go in and get the goddamn bomb out, said UC Berkeley law professor Jesse Choper. In cases when police dont have time to get a warrant, Choper explained, there are circumstances that make it legally excusable to enter someones property warrantless. Those are called exigent circumstances. He also said that on the bomb squads way to the bomb, whatever evidence of other criminal activity that was in plain view would be usable in court. Only after the squad had collected the bomb and gathered up any plain view evidence would it be necessary to withdraw and get a warrant to search the rest of the apartment.
Local defense attorney Neal Sanders said that it would be hard to find a better example of a time when police should have forgone a search warrant. If theres a bomb and it has the potential of going off, I cant imagine a more appropriate situation for the police to go in without a warrant, he said. Once the police dealt with the bomb and made sure the firefighters were able to do their job, then they could pull back and get a warrant to search the rest of the apartment for any evidence that wasnt in plain view, said Sanders.
[][][][]
Cindy Thompson was at home in Apartment Two, sitting at her computer, when she heard the fire begin. The pictures on her wall swung from the force of a blast, and next door she could hear screams and loud pops, like firecrackers. Her cat Pooter bolted under bed and hid.
Thompson and her roommate stumbled downstairs, out into the pouring rain. Firefighters were dragging up hoses and giving first aid to one of the people from Apartment Three, who was badly burned.
All of a sudden, the firefighters told everyone to get away from the building. Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Ken Woods said that one of his firefighters had discovered a suspicious object in the closet. Woods went to take a look at it and immediately ordered everyone out of the building. It was a 6- or 8-inch galvanized pipe with end caps, Woods said. It looked like every picture of a pipe bomb you see.
Thompsons roommate tried to go back upstairs for the cat, but firefighters told her that that it was unsafe.
Woods pulled his fire crews back to a 70-foot perimeter. The building was still steaming, he said, but there was no fire suspected and little or no smoke. At the time of the discovery of the device, firefighters had just begun their overhaul stage, when they go room to room and check for hot spots and fires in hidden spaces, visually and with a thermal imaging camera. If not for the suspected bomb, they wouldnt have left the building until they were positive that the fire was completely out. Even though those precautions were delayed, Woods said, the situation seemed stable enough that he let some of the firefighters go back to the station.
The bomb squad showed up around 9:30 p.m. At that point, Woods said, the squad could have gone into the apartment, no problem. The squad prepared its bomb removal robot and then sat tight, waiting for the warrant.
Volunteers from the Red Cross arrived and started handing out blankets to the apartment buildings soaked inhabitants. Thompson said that firefighters suggested she accept the Red Crosss offer to pay for a hotel room; there was no sense standing out in the rain any longer. When Thompson and her roommate left for the hotel, they were shaken up, but they expected to go home the next morning.
Shortly before 10 oclock, however, a breeze brought the fire raging back. The wind picked up significantly out of the southwest, said Assistant Fire Chief Bill Gillespie. If the firefighters had been able to complete their overhaul stage, the wind would have posed little danger. They hadnt, however, gotten a chance to send a crew into the attic to make sure it wasnt burning. The wind blew straight through the busted-out windows and through the hole that firefighters had cut in the roof to vent noxious gases. It woke the dormant embers in the attic.
From behind their perimeter, the firefighters doused the building with their high-pressure hoses, Gillespie said, but they could do little to stop the swiftly spreading flames.
From there, the fire raged through the upstairs apartments and into the Victorian section that fronts Pine Street. We were as close as we dared, working on it from all four sides, Gillespie said. It was burning pretty hard.
Meanwhile, Wilcox had finished writing out the request for a search warrant. A little after 11 p.m. he called the judge, who was asleep, and told him to get his pen ready. On his way to the judges house, one of the firefighters called with the bad news. Well, Im almost there, he remembers saying. Just before midnight, signed warrant in hand, Wilcox phoned the bomb squad to give it the go-ahead.
Although parts of the building were still on fire, a member of the bomb squad suited up. Chief Woods decided that the bomb tech, in his heavy gear, would have trouble safely navigating his way to the bomb. I was concerned that we had holes in the floor, Woods said. I didnt want the bomb tech in his clumsy bomb suit falling through into the first floor. Wearing only his fire suit, Woods led the way.
When we got through into the closet, it was still burning, he said. The ceiling had fallen in, the closet doors had fallen in, and the fire was still in there. He cleared away the debris and pointed out the pipe. The bomb tech took one look and grabbed it. It wasnt a bomb, he said, but an instrument for making hash oil.
At 12:30 a.m. Woods and the bomb tech emerged from the smoke and told the crowd of more than 20 firefighters that they could go back to work.
In her room at the Best Western, Thompson got a good nights sleep. She hasnt slept that well since, she said. Nobody called her to tell her that her apartment had burned. When she showed up there the next morning and saw the broken windows and the blackened eaves, she couldnt understand. She never would have left without her cat, she said, if she had known there was any danger. Thompson had had Pooter a white cat with gray-striped sides, whod been born with just one eye for almost three years, since he was a kitten.
Thompson, 56, is at her sons trailer in King Salmon, where shes been since the Red Cross stopped paying for her hotel room. Shes sitting out front, smoking a cigarette, using her car as a windbreak. Her dirty-blonde hair is gray in parts, and she wears sunglasses over her prescription glasses. A handicapped sign hangs from her cars rearview mirror, and a cane rests against the passenger seat. Why didnt the fire department or the police let her know when her apartment was burning, she wonders. And why havent they contacted her since?
I lost everything, just everything, she said. Thompson managed to make it out with her purse, and luckily her car wasnt in the garage where its normally parked, but her only clothes are the ones shes wearing.
Recently the landlord called her to tell her that the cleanup crew was going through her apartment did she want to come help? Thompson thought of Pooter, somewhere amid her blackened, soaked possessions, and declined. I cant get thoughts of my cat out of my head, she said. Man, I miss him.
Barbara Caldwell, the executive director of the Red Crosss Humboldt Chapter, said that her organization helped Thompson, her roommate, and a family that lived downstairs from Apartment Three. It provided them with hotel rooms, blankets and food, and it connected them with local social services. The Red Cross cant, however, do anything long-term, said Caldwell, and after a week or two the victims had to find other arrangements. Were basically a shoulder [to lean on], she said.
Thompson said that after the fire, Todd Petty, her landlord, offered to give her back her deposit, to help her get her life on track. She turned him down. When Thompson and her roommate moved in nearly four years ago, she remembers telling Petty that she planned on being there forever. She wants to move back in once the apartment is repaired, which could be months away.
Petty said he and his wife were devastated by the fire, but hes most concerned with the fate of his tenants. These poor people that lost absolutely everything they had, he said. My God, its their lives in this place.
Hes not happy about the delay for the warrant. Whoever made the decision to preserve evidence made an ill-advised choice, said Petty. It was not a well thought-out position, and the results were not good. He said that the damage to his four-unit apartment building is estimated to be at least $400,000, not including the value of his tenants possessions. Pettys insurance will cover the cost of rebuilding but wont help the tenants. Under the circumstances, the preservation of property should have taken precedence over the court case, he said.
Detective Wilcox said that as the detective in charge of the scene, he wanted to be sure that whatever he found inside the apartment would be admissible in court. He thought the fire was out, although he admitted that he based that on his own judgment rather than that of the firefighters. I dont think anybody said [the fire] was out, Wilcox said. I know nobody said we need to immediately resume firefighting efforts. He didnt think the bomb was a sufficient exigent circumstance to allow him to enter Apartment Three without a warrant.
Could it have been interpreted differently? Wilcox asked. Almost certainly. However, he said, Based on what I had at the time, that was the best decision I could make.
[][][][]
In the end, the fire damaged much of the evidence that officers collected remnants of plastic bags and vegetation, can with remnants of plastic bottles with vegetation material and liquid material in them, remnants of pressure cylinders, according to the search warrant return paperwork. Along with the metal pipe for making hash, the document said, the cops also found four guns and marijuana.
Two weeks after the blaze, the windows on the blue, two-story building are boarded up, and piles of charred, soaked trash sit in the driveway.
A disaster cleanup companys sign is planted in the front yard of 1628 Pine. Petty said that the cleanup crew has hauled away multiple truckloads of waterlogged drywall, soaked ceiling panels, and ruined belongings. All the interior walls and ceilings will have to be replaced it will probably be at least six months before the apartments are habitable, he said.
The door of Apartment One is ajar. Its directly below Apartment Three, where the fire started. It smells like burnt plastic, and water drips from the holes in the ceiling. A kids stuffed horse sits in the window, forgotten in the rush of the fire.
Matt Rize
Hashmaster
NEXT BHO-DESTRUCTION ARTICLE
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| [TABLE="width: 100%"] [TR] [TD="class: articleBox"][h=1]Picking up the pieces: Eureka family displaced by fire seeks community's help[/h]Jessica Cejnar/The Times-Standard Posted: 03/12/2012 02:24:07 AM PDT Click photo to enlarge  The second explosion sent Dixon upstairs with his wife Rebecca Dixon close behind him. Out came their neighbor and an unidentified female, both badly burned and screaming. Smoke filled the upstairs apartment of 220 Church St. ”All the neighbors were going, 'Get out! Get out!,'” Rebecca Dixon said. “'Get your kids out, there's a fire!' Then I'd say we heard about two or three smaller explosions. And when we were all finally outside and everybody was more or less safe, we heard four or five more explosions.” Jonathon and Rebecca Dixon, their three children, Jonathon's brother Michael, Rebecca's brother and his fiancée and their guests took shelter from the pouring rain under the eaves of a nearby building while Humboldt Bay fire crews battled the blaze, which was still confined to the upstairs unit. By the next morning, the Dixons' apartment would be in ruins, the ceiling caved in, ash and water blanketing the floor and furniture, books, clothing and toys destroyed. To help the Dixons get back on their feet, Jonathon Dixon's mother, Mary Dixon, has set up an account through Coast Central Credit Union and is asking the community for help. ”They need everything,” she said. Firefighters appeared to have the blaze under control when the Dixons and most of the other Advertisement tenants sought shelter for the night. But as crews were putting out residual hotspots inside the apartment, they spotted what appeared to be a pipe bomb in a bedroom closet, evacuated the building and called the Eureka Police Department and the Humboldt County bomb squad.The suspicious item turned out to be a device for extracting hashish oil, according to Eureka police. The fire reignited and spread while firefighters were waiting for the bomb squad and police officers sought a search warrant. Dixon and eight to 10 other residents were left homeless. The fire caused an estimated $500,000 in damage, said Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Ken Woods. Ambulance crews transported Dixons' upstairs neighbor, 18-year-old Robert Davis, and the female to the hospital with serious burns. Davis is currently in fair condition at UC Davis Medical Center, according to hospital spokeswoman Susan Mar. Information about the unidentified female was not available, although Eureka Police Detective Todd Wilcox said one patient was released from the hospital. Fire investigators later determined that the blaze started in the bathroom of the second-story apartment, Woods said. The ignition source appeared to be a wall heater, he said. Woods said that fire crews fighting the fire found several containers of butane, which is used to make hashish oil. ”Obviously, if they were extracting hash oil, which they initially indicated they were doing, (they) used butane for that,” he said. “When you're using butane around an ignition source like a wall heater, you're going to get a fire and an explosion.” Nearly six weeks after the fire, boards cover the doors and windows at 220 Church St. The windows of a nearby attached home are also boarded up. The building's blue color turns to black under the eaves where smoke poured out of the attic. Jonathon Dixon, who works at Expert Tires, said he and his wife moved into the neighborhood from McKinleyville about a month before the fire because the apartment was close to his work, the price was right and they thought the neighborhood was nice. He and his wife were friendly with their upstairs neighbors. Although the couple believed their neighbors occasionally smoked marijuana, the Dixons said they had no idea an apparent hashish operation was going on above their heads. ”I know they smoked marijuana,” Jonathon Dixon said. “I had no idea they were trying to refine it into something different. I'm upset with that guy and his decision, and my kids have words they want to say to him.” Jonathon and Rebecca Dixon currently share a room with their three children at a McKinleyville home belonging to Jonathon Dixon's father. When his family lived in Eureka, Jonathon Dixon said, he could walk to work, spending about $20 a week on gas. Now, he estimates he spends $80 on gas. Jonathon Dixon's brother has the home's spare bedroom while his brother-in-law and his fiancée sleep in the living room. Immediately after the blaze, the Dixons' landlord returned their rent and security deposit, Rebecca Dixon said. The Red Cross helped Jonathon and Rebecca Dixon get food and clothes for their children, allowing them to go back to school. Jonathon and Rebecca Dixon have also found a home in Eureka that they can afford and will likely move into later this month. ”Anything helps and is appreciated,” Rebecca Dixon said. Rebecca and Jonathon Dixon say things are getting better. Their cat, which ran away from the apartment during the blaze, showed up at the doorstep the next day and is doing fine, Jonathon Dixon said. Although their children are still upset, Rebecca Dixon said they're working through their anger as best they can. ”We're making the best of what we can,” she said “We've been together 12 years, and there's nothing in this world that could hurt our relationship. It's big things like this that makes us stronger.” ___________________________________ How to help: Fire victims account set up To donate to the Jonathon Dixon family, deposits can be made into account No. 177810 at Coast Central Credit Union. The account is under Mary Dixon and benefits the Jonathon Dixon family. _________________________________________ Jessica Cejnar can be reached at 441-0504 or at [email protected]. |
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oHsiN666
Well-Known Member
im sorry... i read a tad bit of this. but if you make BHO the correct way, outside WITH q fan directly on you, as i do each and every time i make it, and i make it at least 5 times a week, you should be fine. anyone with any common knowledge of combustibles will know that they should never make BHO inside. i feel really bad for the innocent victims involved in a couple of DUMB stoners mistakes. but i have, and i knock on wood as i type this, never had an issue with it. and the first 5 times i made it i made it indoors, STUPID of me!
i do have one questions though, just so i feel a little safer, once you have purged everything through the extractor, and the liquid is evaporating in the container, is it safe at that point? i keep a window open when its evaporating. but i evap in the kitchen. i place it in the sink. i know butane evaps at 98.9 degrees. room temp. i hear people boil water. i feel that is unnecessary. the hottest water that comes out of the tap is perfect!
i am not an expert, but i feel that my methods are very sound. i would never tell anyone to go out an make BHO. although, the high is well worth the dangers, imo. if anyone would like to let me know how i can take some extra better precautions just to make sure i never blow up myself or my neighborhood? i already make it outside, with a box fan on my full blast! i sit down on the ground, "Indian Style". i usually purge about 3-4 cans through about 20-30g. i make about 3-5 batches per week and get about 3-5g each batch. i think my methods are great! my return is excellent! and the taste..ehhww wwwhee!!! soooo yumm-E!!!! it would take some great persuading to steer me clear from making BHO. but i do want to know thee most 100% safest way to make BHO.
i do have one questions though, just so i feel a little safer, once you have purged everything through the extractor, and the liquid is evaporating in the container, is it safe at that point? i keep a window open when its evaporating. but i evap in the kitchen. i place it in the sink. i know butane evaps at 98.9 degrees. room temp. i hear people boil water. i feel that is unnecessary. the hottest water that comes out of the tap is perfect!
i am not an expert, but i feel that my methods are very sound. i would never tell anyone to go out an make BHO. although, the high is well worth the dangers, imo. if anyone would like to let me know how i can take some extra better precautions just to make sure i never blow up myself or my neighborhood? i already make it outside, with a box fan on my full blast! i sit down on the ground, "Indian Style". i usually purge about 3-4 cans through about 20-30g. i make about 3-5 batches per week and get about 3-5g each batch. i think my methods are great! my return is excellent! and the taste..ehhww wwwhee!!! soooo yumm-E!!!! it would take some great persuading to steer me clear from making BHO. but i do want to know thee most 100% safest way to make BHO.
dankillerbs
Active Member
I'm more interested in discussing any possible health issues associated with smoking BHO, rather than people's ignorance when it comes to making it.
washedmothafuka
Well-Known Member
Most health concerns are put to rest when the oil hits the red hot nail. Every single health aspect I've looked into has come out with nothing. The only thing I've heard of that I am not sure about is the welding they use (inside the cans) and how sometimes it can get into the product.
But it would be great to get some people in hear who have legit health concerns for bho. Because I have gone back and forth the past year or two and right now I just don't see anything that will realistically cause a health problem worse than that of smoking strait buds.
But it would be great to get some people in hear who have legit health concerns for bho. Because I have gone back and forth the past year or two and right now I just don't see anything that will realistically cause a health problem worse than that of smoking strait buds.
Matt Rize
Hashmaster
from what Ive seen the real health concerns are in making it. boom goes the dynamite.
we dont know about the health concerns of smoking it, and we all should be thankful that cannabis is suck a forgiving plant.
try smoking any other crude raw extraction of a drug, and you might just die.
I've been seeing these claims lately that only N-butane should be used. How can one tell what type of butane is actually in their can of butane? I can't seem to find any information on the kinds of butane I've been using and not sure where to find what percentage is actually n-butane. Does anybody have a way of finding this information out? And also whether or not it has an added chemical for the smell?
Thanks
DreamTime
Member
Even the best cans of butane (think Vector) are not pure n-butane, I would suggest looking up the MSDS for any butane you are considering. Here is the one for Vector: http://www.vectorkgm.com/catalog/butane/Vector_Gas_MSDS.pdf
As you'll see, it contains 60% n-butane, 29% iso-butane, and 11% propane. It does not contain any additive like mercaptan to create an odor.
Pure n-butane is not easy to come by. It comes in a canister, not a can. You'll need to order it from a gas supply company. In addition, by default, the cansiter you get from a gas company is configured to deliver the n-butane as a gas. For extraction, we need our butane in liquid form, so you'd need to have the gas company fit your canister with something called an eductor tube so that gas is released as a liquid.
If you make it that far, and purchase an eductor fitted canister full of n-butane, then you'll have to figure out how to connect it to an extraction tube
I suspect that going pure n-butane isn't practical until you up your BHO game to a Tamisium
Matt Rize
Hashmaster
great post, thanks for the knowledgeEven the best cans of butane (think Vector) are not pure n-butane, I would suggest looking up the MSDS for any butane you are considering. Here is the one for Vector: http://www.vectorkgm.com/catalog/butane/Vector_Gas_MSDS.pdf
As you'll see, it contains 60% n-butane, 29% iso-butane, and 11% propane. It does not contain any additive like mercaptan to create an odor.
Pure n-butane is not easy to come by. It comes in a canister, not a can. You'll need to order it from a gas supply company. In addition, by default, the cansiter you get from a gas company is configured to deliver the n-butane as a gas. For extraction, we need our butane in liquid form, so you'd need to have the gas company fit your canister with something called an eductor tube so that gas is released as a liquid.
If you make it that far, and purchase an eductor fitted canister full of n-butane, then you'll have to figure out how to connect it to an extraction tube
I suspect that going pure n-butane isn't practical until you up your BHO game to a Tamisium
even with a Tami its not worth the extra money to get the nbutane. i know many with tamis. none run n-butane. cans in a tami for the half ass win i guess
oilmkr420
Active Member
yup yup butanes also nasty. i wrote a thread in the past overnite became hot, and did i piss off butane die hards royally. maybe i will write another as i feel the same way matt does. rize up the bar to co2.yeah yeah!!!
oilmkr420
Active Member
n-butane means normal butane. really not that hard to come by. maybe u should look into lpg instead? but imo and expierience iso-butane is what you should be extracting w, not n-butane as that shits dirty. dimethyl propane is way more efficient and thurough than n or iso butane, but the trade off is taste. that nastiness can be treated w activated charcoal column to minimize that, but its inherit. co2 is where its at for oil. the next thing best is far behind as butane extracts. not in the same leagues at all.
Even the best cans of butane (think Vector) are not pure n-butane, I would suggest looking up the MSDS for any butane you are considering. Here is the one for Vector: http://www.vectorkgm.com/catalog/butane/Vector_Gas_MSDS.pdf
As you'll see, it contains 60% n-butane, 29% iso-butane, and 11% propane. It does not contain any additive like mercaptan to create an odor.
Pure n-butane is not easy to come by. It comes in a canister, not a can. You'll need to order it from a gas supply company. In addition, by default, the cansiter you get from a gas company is configured to deliver the n-butane as a gas. For extraction, we need our butane in liquid form, so you'd need to have the gas company fit your canister with something called an eductor tube so that gas is released as a liquid.
If you make it that far, and purchase an eductor fitted canister full of n-butane, then you'll have to figure out how to connect it to an extraction tube
I suspect that going pure n-butane isn't practical until you up your BHO game to a Tamisium
DreamTime
Member
Make sure you only use a high quality quintuple refined butane like Vector, and that you completely purge your oil. I see an awful lot of under purged oil that is still obviously full of butane out there. And while I'm not an opponent of BHO, ice water extraction is definitely a less dangerous process.
Matt Rize
Hashmaster
truth is you won't have fully purged BHO unless you have a real vac, or over heat it.
DreamTime
Member
I have seen some beautiful oil that was only oven purged, but I much prefer a combination of low heat and vacuum. That means a good 2 stage pump and a real vacuum chamber.. no mason jars, no mighty vac, no food sealers... those things are dangerous and don't work well.
Jack Harer
Well-Known Member
I would think that educating people on how to do it correctly would be a priority. I seriously doubt that even the most stupid people would intentionally blow themselves up if they could avoid it. I've seen some pretty fucking stupid guys who successfully cook meth without injury, but thay were taught safety precautions.
Matt Rize
Hashmaster
for sure. totally agree.
beautiful over purge, oh yeah of course, terpene rich tho? nope. you can't have your oven purge and your terps too.
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