Escondido Bomb House Successfully Burned
ESCONDIDO, California (CBS/AP) A fire intentionally set Thursday to destroy the Escondido bomb house, a rental home filled with makeshift explosives in a suburban San Diego neighborhood, rapidly consumed the structure without major problems as fire crews and curious onlookers watched.
PICTURES: Escondido Bomb House Burns
Authorities said the home was so packed with homemade explosives that they had no choice but to burn it to the ground.
Remotely controlled explosive devices ignited the home shortly after 11 a.m. and it quickly became engulfed in flames as thick smoke rose high into the sky, going just as authorities had planned to avoid spreading toxic fumes through the community.
According to CBS affiliate KMFB, loud popping noises and occasional blasts could be heard in the community.
The house was rented by George Jakubec, an unemployed software consultant who authorities say assembled an astonishing quantity of bomb-making materials that included the kind of chemicals used by suicide bombers.
Investigators say they are still trying to understand what motivated the Serbia-born Jakubec to stockpile the material. Jakubec, 54, has pleaded not guilty to charges of making destructive devices and robbing three banks.
PICTURES: Escondido Bomb House Burns
"This has gone according to plan," said Jan Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. "They wanted to wait for that perfect moment."
Scores of nearby residents were evacuated earlier and were expected to be allowed to return by Thursday night.
The fire was expected to reach about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit - hot enough to neutralize the unstable explosives inside.
Bomb-squad experts determined the residence was too dangerous to go inside, so they drew up plans to burn it down. The home is so cluttered with unstable chemicals that even bomb-disposing robots couldn't be used to enter it.
Officers said they found the same types of chemicals used by suicide bombers and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The materials included Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, which was used in the 2001 airliner shoe-bombing attempt as well as airplane cargo bombs discovered last month by authorities.
Nearly every room was packed with piles of explosive material and items related to making homemade bombs, prosecutors said.
In the backyard, bomb technicians found six mason jars with highly unstable Hexamethylene triperoxide diamine, or HMDT, which can explode if stepped on. A coffee table was found cluttered with documents and strewn with detonators, prosecutors said.
The chemicals were found after a gardener accidentally set off an explosion at the home by stepping on what authorities believe was a byproduct of HMTD.