El Dorado County Search & Rescue

The hazards we face in Search and Rescue are not always natural. Sometimes they're man-made One of the ways our fellow human beings make our lives more exciting is by growing dope or mixing drugs on the National Forest.

However, don't mob the Air Search Team with applications just yet. Despite the industry's outlaw, shoot first reputation, there is little risk of accidentally stumbling onto a booby-trapped pot farm or a live drug lab. Overall, the number of outdoor pot farms is decreasing, and fewer and fewer plants are being seized every year. Also, while one farm in twenty used to be booby trapped, nowadays only one farm in 200 is. Finally, mother nature herself limits the threat: it gets harder to grow pot as the altitude rises, and farms are rare above 5000 feet.

The best defenses against pot farms and meth labs are alertness and trained clue awareness — qualities that searchers bring with them automatically.

Marijuana Farms - Unless you stumble right into a pot farm, there aren't very many clues that say, "Hey, kids! Marijuana patch dead ahead!" Instead, it's a process of noticing certain kinds of clues and adding them up as you go. When the evidence reaches critical mass, the mental alarms start ringing.

Marijuana growers are especially active in April, when growers are planting their crop, and in September and October, when they harvest it. During these times growers are likely to be living in their farms.

Elevation can be a negative clue. Since weed needs a frost free climate between April and October, marijuana farms do best at low and medium elevations. As you rise to around 5000 feet, they're limited to south-facing sunny slopes. Higher than that, they're rare or non-existent.

Thanks to "grow some dope, lose your house" forfeiture laws, outdoor farms are moving onto Federal lands nowadays, including national forests. Don't automatically discount private property, however. The profit margin ($4,000-6,000 a pound for buds) means that someone is always willing to try it at home.

Next to the road, your first clue may be fences and signs that are the products of a paranoid mind. The fences are too big and too strong, and the signs are too threatening. (Signs and fences like these deep in the woods fairly scream, "Watch Out!" Another clue is a parking spot that is awkward and which makes you wonder why anyone would park there.

The trail leading away from the road into the growing area may be unusual. If you are tracking, you may notice attempts to hide a trail by covering it or brushing it over. The grower may leave coins on the trail as "telltales"; if the coins are gone on his next visit, the grower knows that someone has been there. Rocks are used in the same way. However, trash on the trail is a negative clue.

Or, you may find a water line that is buried or otherwise hidden with logs laid end-to-end. The end of the water line that is in the stream may be camouflaged with rocks. A water line that is cool on a hot day has water flowing through it, and should make you stop and ask why. Automatic watering timers are another favorite tool of growers.

If you work closer to the site, you may find some of the grower's attempts to protect his cash crop from animals. Chicken wire or field fence in odd places might be a clue (why would someone fence a manzanita patch?). A dead deer may be left there to deter other deer. (The #1 and #2 killers of deer are cars and marijuana growers. Hunters are number three.) Growers may put out animal poison. (Dog teams beware...dogs are attracted to strychnine-laced rat bait. There is an antidote.)

Some farms are protected on the outside with a wall of brush. There has to be an opening, of course, but the opening may be camouflaged by stuffing it with more brush. The stuffed brush will dry out, however, so brown or gray brush in the midst of green is a clue. It may be of a different species. Note that if the farm is booby trapped, it will almost certainly be here.

At some point, you may find telltale trash. Growers use common items in unusual ways, and these make for unusual kinds of trash. For example, discarded egg cartons or foam cups with dirt inside are used to grow seedlings. Discarded trash bags with holes cut in them may have been used as "grow bags." Empty fertilizer bags are supportive evidence.

The materials used to make booby traps could be a clue. Rat traps or blasting caps are very suspicious. Shotgun shells with a punctured primer or a missing primer are, too — normal shotgun shells have a dented primer.

Booby traps, by the way, are an overrated threat, thanks in part to media hype. (Also, it seems to me, brain-addled growers might tend to avoid using them after they tripped their own wires a few times - PD.)

Equipment hidden under tarps can be a clue. The tarps may be covered with brush or dirt to hide them further. In the middle of nowhere, this is clearly excessive and should arouse your caution.

Wood smoke on warm days might be suspicious; late September and October is the drying season.

Near the grower's tool shed or cabin, camouflaged tools, buckets, and water lines are indicators. Sometimes, to give the area an atmosphere of normalcy, the grower will hang clothes from a clothes line; the tipoff is that the clothes are never taken down, so they become faded and weathered. Unfinished projects and possessions left to rot are sometimes part of growers' lifestyles.

More and more growers are going indoors. A grow room disguised as a garage, chicken coop or outhouse will be tightly sealed, yet may have excessive venting or air conditioning. Excessive insulation keeps the heat and the smell inside. In addition, if the grower was enjoying the product as he worked, the construction may be a bit strange because of his short term memory loss.

If you encounter a marijuana farm, someone may already be watching you, so don't holler, "Hey guys! I think we've found a MARIJUANA FARM!" Your best bet is to move out of the area the same way you came in, without an obvious change of behavior. When you get a safe distance away, advise the command post. (How far away is safe? Well, remember, dopers have scanners.) Don't wait until you get back to base camp though; CP will want to alert other teams.

Meth Labs - The marijuana farm's ugly brother is the methamphetamine lab.

From time to time, one hears of an ordinary suburban house exploding (literally) because, authorities discover afterwards, someone was mixing up methamphetamine inside. Make no mistake, meth labs are dangerous. It is true whether they're active or abandoned. It is true for the drugs, the chemicals, the waste products and the people.

Making meth requires some highly potent chemicals. Merely touching some of them can poison a person. The leftover waste from a meth lab is a full-blown Hazmat site, and cleanup requires specially trained people with head-to-toe protective suits and respirators.

Tip-offs to a drug lab's presence start with the chemicals. The smell of ether is a genuine warning sign. Other signs are gray 5 gallon chemical cans scattered about, lots of propane, and/or a gas-powered generator. The house (or trailer, or bus — some labs are mobile) may have blacked out windows, often with aluminum foil.

The Bottom Line - Chances are you will never discover a marijuana farm or a meth lab during your entire SAR career. But knowing what the signs are, and how to react, will give you the edge in case you do, and will give others confidence in your leadership.