LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Police Department is investigating a hash oil lab explosion late last week that left a man seriously injured.

On Friday at about 4:45 p.m. Lakeport Police officers were dispatched to Anthony’s RV Park, located at 2301 Beach Lane, to assist the Lakeport Fire Protection District with a 21-year-old Lakeport man who was severely burned and uncooperative, according to Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen.

Upon arrival, officers assisted the fire department and also began investigating the cause of the man being burned, Rasmussen said.

Rasmussen said the officers determined that the man was associated with a travel trailer at the RV park and went to the location to investigate.  

The officers determined that a marijuana hash oil lab was being operated and that butane fumes ignited, causing an explosion and the fire which severely burned the man, Rasmussen said.

The man was transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital by ground ambulance and then flown to UC Davis Medical Center, where he remained late Tuesday, according to Rasmussen.

Rasmussen said his officers secured the scene and a detective wrote an affidavit for a search warrant. That affidavit later was approved and a Lake County Superior Court judge issued a search warrant.

At approximately 10 p.m. Friday, the Lakeport Police officers served the search warrant and processed the trailer for evidence, Rasmussen said.

Numerous items of evidence including approximately 20 pounds of marijuana, finished hash oil, 30 full canisters of butane, 60 empty cans of butane and other items used in the marijuana hash oil manufacture process were located, according to Rasmussen.

Butane hash oil labs are extremely dangerous to the persons operating them, their surrounding neighbors and first responders including police and firefighters, Rasmussen said.

“We were lucky in this case that additional persons were not injured or killed and that other surrounding property including buildings and wildland were not burned,” he said.

Rasmussen said the investigation for manufacturing a controlled substance remains ongoing.

The Lakeport Police Department is asking that anyone with information about the case contact officers at 707-263-5491, via a private message on the department's Facebook page @LakeportPolice or by sending them an anonymous message from a cellular telephone by texting the words TIP LAKEPORT followed by your message to 888777.