Oregon Crews Find Booby Traps in Yard
GRESHAM, Ore. --
Gresham firefighters faced unexpected hazards when fighting a blaze in Wood Village last month: Booby-traps.
Battalion Chief Eric Lofgren provided pictures to FOX 12 that show nails sticking out of a fence and sharp wooden stakes in a pit covered with brush.
"I've never seen anything like this," Lofgren says. "We hope it's not a trend for us, that's for sure."
Around 4 a.m. Oct. 12, Gresham firefighters found flames shooting 30 feet into the air from a shed in back of a home where the residents grow medical marijuana, crews say.
Firefighters say one of the residents was outside fighting the fire with a garden hose when they arrived, but he didn't warn authorities about the obstacles in the yard.
"So, that first couple minutes of the fire we are in go mode and this is where it would have been nice to say, 'Avoid these areas,'" Lofgren says.
Firefighters didn't see the booby-traps until after the fire was knocked down, but Lofgren says no one was injured.
One of the homeowners says she tried to warn authorities, but the scene was chaotic.
"I told them, 'Don't go on that side of the house to the garden because there was stuff there.' But everything was happening so fast," says Cindy Lloyd. "There was something out front that they tripped over so, yeah, they probably didn't like it too much."
Lloyd says her family set up the booby traps after they caught a man in their back yard trying to steal their marijuana plants.
She says they have removed the traps from their yard, but the nails remain in the fence.
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