INSPECTION PROGRAM TO CRACK DOWN ON POT GROWERS WORKING,
FIRE CHIEF SAYS

SURREY - When the city launched a program to have the fire department
inspect homes using suspicious amounts of power, some wondered if it
was worth the effort.

Wonder no more.

"It's working," Chief Len Garis says.

Surrey's crackdown on marijuana growing operations through its
Electrical and Fire Safety Inspection program has shut down a number
of illicit operations and led to a drop in the number of house fires
in the city, according to a report for Surrey city council from Garis.

The report shows that between July 27, 2006 and June 25, 2007, 65 per
cent of the places inspected were no longer attracting the attention
of the program.

Marijuana growers often tamper with electrical equipment in houses
they either own or rent to bypass the system to tap into free
electricity for their marijuana cultivation.

This tampering frequently leads to fires because of improperly
installed homemade systems, which results in shock and fire hazards.

Surrey's program, which is now being adopted by other cities, was
launched in response to the high number of fires caused by marijuana
growers in the city.

In partnership with BC Hydro, the EFSI initiative allows electrical
inspections of houses that are consuming higher than normal levels of
electricity.

In 2006, the first full year of the EFSI program, the number of fires
sparked by growing operations dropped to 3.7 per cent, or nine fires,
which was a 40 per cent decrease from the previous year.

In January of 2007, the Surrey EFSI team was expanded and inspected
1,000 addresses obtained from Hydro that meet the criteria of
unusually high consumption.

Inspections conducted during the first half of 2007 identified
electrical deficiencies in 86 per cent of the homes inspected, or
nearly nine of out every 10 places inspected.