On Wednesday last week, at about 4 p.m., Arcata Fire was called out to a home on the 1100 block of Hiller Road. The initial word, as chronicled on our “Scanner Traffic Indicates” page, was that a house was on fire on that block. Once firefighters arrived on scene, though, they discovered that it was a vegetation fire next to a house. Firefighters knocked it down, and the home was not imperiled.

However, firefighters asked the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office to respond to the scene, and ended up making one arrest for marijuana cultivation. How did that happen?

It took a couple of days, but we finally got some narrative from the Sheriff’s Office on this case. According to Sheriff’s Office public information officer Selena Zorrilla Mendoza, the fire was up under the eaves of the home, which meant that firefighters had to check the attic before leaving the scene. No one was home at the time, so they called a sheriff’s deputy to the site to be present while they forced entry. This is Arcata Fire policy, apparently.

When firefighters went inside, they discovered an indoor marijuana grow in the home. The Drug Task Force was notified, and a search warrant was written and served.

While this was going on, the homeowner — Joshua James Nelson, 39 — arrived at the scene. Officers determined that Nelson lived in the residence and was responsible for the grow, Zorrilla Mendoza said, and so they arrested him. 

Nelson bailed out of jail early Friday morning.