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Child Abuse Charges Possible After Hash Oil Explosion In Jefferson County

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) - A hash oil explosion has authorities in Jefferson County looking into charges against the parents of two small children.

The explosion happened Saturday night at a townhome complex on South Independence Street in unincorporated Jefferson County.

Hash Oil Explosion Map
(credit: CBS)

Child abuse charges may be issued sometime Monday or Tuesday. Cooking hash oil is not necessarily a crime, but when damage is caused and it endangers others such as children in this case, then the police may file charges.

This hash oil fire is a first for Jefferson County, but not for Colorado,

"There's no geographical distinction that they're happening in the east, the west, what have you, so it's not a real shocker," Mark Techmeyer with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said.

Making hash oil often means using butane to extract the psychoactive chemical THC from marijuana. Hash oil reportedly produces a more intense high but the process is highly volatile.

"The oil itself is a much more higher concentrate of THC, so it provides a bigger high," Techmeyer said. "But is it worth putting your family and neighbors lives at risk?"

Two small children -- a 3-year-old and an 8-month-old -- were in this townhouse near Littleton when the sheriff's office says their father was cooking hash oil.

"The neighbor that was there; he said he heard this massive explosion, all the pictures fell off his wall, and the neighbor was the one that actually went in and grabbed the kids, it wasn't even the dad or the mom," neighbor Sharon Minger said.

"The act itself of cooking the hash oil is not illegal, when it exploded, now we have arson issues and child abuse issues because we had little ones in the house," Techmeyer said.

That's what has Minger, a mother of a 7-year-old, so alarmed.

"It's more just being disgusted that people, when they have little children, that they would do those sort of things," Minger said.

The names of the parents have not been released.

The father is in the hospital with minor injuries. His children are staying with family members.

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