POT FOUND IN BURNING HOME

Kiwanis staff will look into how one of their subsidized houses came to be used as an indoor pot farm. The illegal drug operation was discovered Friday when an Afton Avenue house and a neighbouring home went up in flames, injuring one tenant and forcing the couple next door from their home.

Fire officials estimated total damage to the two houses at $190,000.

Warren Beck, a board member for Hamilton East Kiwanis Non-profit Homes Inc., said: "We will be doing our inquiry Monday.

"We obviously don't condone that illegal activity."

Drug squad officers searched the home over the weekend.

One person has been charged.

Nineteen firefighters arrived at the home at 6 p.m. Friday, after a 33-year-old resident accidentally set his back porch on fire with a propane torch.

Flames gutted his home and jumped to his neighbour's house.

It took firefighters four hours to control the blaze.

The man is in fair condition in Hamilton General Hospital with first- and second-degree burns to 35 per cent of his body.

Staff Sergeant Peter McHarg said police searched the house Saturday night and the drug squad is investigating.

District Chief Murray Cole of the Hamilton fire department said his crew found marijuana plants in the basement.

Although firefighters go to fires caused by indoor grow lamps "all the time," he said a propane torch started the Afton Avenue fire.

He did not know why the man was using the torch.

The fire forced next-door neighbours Gwen and Keith Chandler from their home.

The blaze jumped to their porch and the upper floor.

Gwen Chandler was about to have ice cream outside with her three grandchildren when she saw a fireball explode through a window of her neighbour's house.

"Thank God, we didn't go out there," said Chandler, as she gathered up clothes and albums with pictures of her children.

The couple may have to live elsewhere for three months while their home is repaired.

They were also worried about personal items, including a grandfather clock, a coin collection and smoky clothes.

Michael Stewart, an investigator for the Fire Marshal's Office, has ruled the fire was accidental.

"In houses with older wood like that, fire can spread very quickly.

"There was lots of oxygen ... The fire department did a good job considering the age of the house and wood."

District fire chief Robert Bell said his crew found the back porch of the house -- where the fire started -- completely ablaze when they arrived.

The fire spread into the kitchen, then climbed to the second floor.

He said the house where the fire started had $80,000 in structural damage and $30,000 worth of contents were destroyed.

There was $60,000 damage to the Chandlers' home and $20,000 in lost belongings.

"It was a good-sized fire.

"When you are dealing with free-standing buildings, it's easier (for fires to spread) when you have neighbours so close," Bell said.

Kiwanis owns or manages almost 1,000 housing units in Hamilton, including single-family homes, apartments and townhouses.