Captain of Aurora Fire Investigations Siegfried Kline presented some of the fire problems Colorado has been experiencing stemming from the production of hash oils.
Kline said so far he has traveled around the states of Colorado, California, and now Alaska offering presentations on what has been seen since marijuana legalization was passed in Colorado ten months ago.
Capt. Kline: “Law enforcement agencies, other fire departments, concerned citizens have come out and say what do you know, what have you learned from the city of Aurora. We’ve had the most explosions of fires in the Denver metro area and in the state also and so we were kind of on the forefront and we started learning and people started contacting us saying, help us be safer.”
In the presentation to about 30 of the Kenai Peninsula’s first responders, Capt. Kline defined what hash oil is: a resinous matrix of cannabinoids obtained from the cannabis plant by solvent extraction.
Butane hash oil is the most popular variety of extraction, where the highly flammable gas butane is used to extract an oil from all parts of the marijuana plant.
BHO extraction can use upwards of a dozen cans of butane and the highly pressurized canisters are often found outside of homes that have caught fire in the extraction process, according to Kline, causing additional dangers to first responders.
He said the reason hash oil extraction fires have increased so quickly is that it is easy to extract, the oil is nearly 99% pure THC and holds high street value, however Colorado law enforcement is finding that hash oil ingestion is causing a variety of user reactions not associated with smoking or eating marijuana.