Narcotics agents said Tuesday they had little doubt that the nearly 90,000-acre La Brea fire was started by Mexican drug traffickers who were tending a large, sophisticated marijuana farm planted on the side of a mountain.
The growers apparently fled as firefighters approached the source of the fire and are still at large, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said. Their abandoned site was similar to other illicit plots planted by Mexican nationals and discovered by drug agents in recent years.
Investigators found 30,000 top-grade cannabis plants ranging in height from 2 feet to 6 feet. Stacks of propane tanks, melted irrigation tubing, empty fertilizer canisters, mounds of trash, a torched cooking stove and a semiautomatic rifle were also found at the Los Padres National Forest location, the sheriff and other agents said.
