Firefighters find illegal pot operation in Santa Ana office building

SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) -- A fire in a Santa Ana office building led authorities to a hidden illegal marijuana farm Friday morning.

Inside a nondescript building, firefighters found hundreds and hundreds of marijuana plants worth $2.3 million.

"They don't find a fire, but what they do find is 1,600 plus marijuana plants. This is obviously a grow facility," Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

Officers said there is plenty of evidence that the people in the building were still in the process of creating the grow facility because some items had yet to be installed.

In addition to several rooms being full of the plant in different growing stages, firefighters also found expensive top-of-the-line equipment used to produce marijuana and to avoid raising any red flags with law enforcement about water and electricity use.

"They're using very sophisticated irrigation, filtering systems in this building," Bertagna said.

Authorities said five cars sped off the lot when the fire engines arrived, and they are now talking to witnesses and looking for suspects.

The bust came as a huge surprise to other people in the area, especially a man who works next door to the office.

"It's just quiet. Everybody minds their own business, as far as I know. But yeah I was pretty shocked when I found out," Jonathan Macias said.

While a number of pot shops were recently legalized in the city, the bolts and locks on the doors indicated that this business was not one of them.

"They have no permits. They have no business license and obviously this is an illegal operation," Bertagna said.