It’s going to be a blue Christmas for someone.

Fairburn firefighters responding Nov. 25 to reports of smoke at a Camden Way residence quickly made the discovery of what turned out to be more than a quarter million dollars of suspected marijuana being grown in the unused house.

Fairburn police and firegfighters responded when a neighbor called to report smoke coming from the house in the Camden Place subdivision on Plantation Road. Firefighters entered the home after determining that no one was inside the residence. Though the flames were quickly extinguished it was the contents of the home that made fire unusual. The house was empty except for an air mattress and a safe bolted to the floor in one of the bedrooms, according to police and fire reports.

In place of the items that usually outfit a home firefighters and officers found a total of 192 suspected marijuana plants in various stages of production and a host of items necessary to outfit a “grow house,” reports said. Tri-Cities Narcotics Task Force Commander J. Midkiff was notified once the discovery was made.

Found inside the house were 117 suspected marijuana plants hanging from strings in the master bedroom, seven plants located in posts in the room, 20 pots containing harvested plants found the garage and 48 seedlings in the refrigerator, reports said. Another T-shirt sized bag of suspected marijuana was found in a kitchen cabinet by one of the firefighters and an unspecified amount of suspected marijuana in a bathroom, reports added. Estimating the suspected marijuana seized at 192 plants, Midkiff said the find carried a street value of approximately $230,400.

Found in the home were the components required to have the residence function as a grow house. Firefighters and police found that the windows had been covered from the inside with ply-board and the walls covered with aluminum reflective film, reports said. Also found was a large carbon dioxide tank with a bucket containing an assortment of hoses. The valve on the tank was labeled “CO2 hydro-farm.” Located inside the house were high intensity grow lights, fans, an assortment of buckets, two Maximum Yield magazines, a Super-Natural Glow magazine, a Green Air Product magazine, a National Garden magazine and an Urban Garden Source book, reports said.

The fire appeared to have started after a rope supporting some of the previously harvested suspected marijuana somehow fell onto one of the grow lights, said Fairburn Public Safety Director Walt Brown. Two rooms sustained fire damage while the remaining rooms sustained smoke and water damage, he said.

Midkiff said Tuesday the investigation to determine the responsible party was ongoing. The house had been newly purchased with a June 30 closing date, he said. Midkiff said that, with no one living on the premise, investigators speculated that the house might have been purchased to grow marijuana year-round. He said such a practice occurs nationwide, though the practice of manufacturing and distributing marijuana is usually done with rental houses.

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