Los Angeles County firefighters knocked down a fire in Rosemead on Sunday, March 4 at what investigators believe was a marijuana growing “operation,” a sheriff’s spokewoman said.
The fire started at a home on the 7400 block of Whitmore Street just before 11 a.m., said Lt. Marcia Williams of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
She said L.A. county firefighters responded and knocked down the fire by around 12:20 p.m. There didn’t appear to be anyone at the home at the time of the fire, Williams said.
Officials did not know the cause of the fire as of Sunday afternoon. They also didn’t have a damage estimate, Williams said.
Williams didn’t say how big the marijuana growing operation was, or what investigators found in the home that led them to believe such an operation was located there.
Like many California cities, Rosemead allows residents to cultivate a small number of marijuana plants in their homes after the passage of Proposition 64 in 2016 legalized the drug statewide.
But the city does continue to outlaw large marijuana growing, manufacturing or testing operations, according to a Southern California News Group analysis of cannabis regulations Southern California’s cities.
