Authorities burn down explosive-packed house

Dec 9, 2010, 19:51 GMT

Los Angeles - Authorities in California on Thursday burned down a house that was packed with illegal explosives after it was been judged too dangerous for bomb disposal experts to defuse.

The house in Escondido, California was set alight on Thursday morning after neighbouring homes had been protected with fire-retardant gel. Hundreds of fire-fighting staff stood by in case of a wider conflagration. Hundreds of neighbours were evacuated and a nearby freeway was shut down as a safety precaution.

Television pictures showed the suburban one-storey home engulfed in flames within minutes of ignition while several small explosions could be heard coming from inside the structure.

Police have charged the house's tenant George Jakubec with possessing and manufacturing destructive devices and robbing banks, charges he denies. Prosecutors told a judge that the house needed to be destroyed because it contained so many explosives and was so filled with clutter that bomb-defusing robots could not enter.

A judge on Wednesday accepted the argument, leaving it to remotely-controlled explosive devices to ignite the home.

Chemicals inside the house included pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, which was used in the 2001 airliner shoe-bombing attempt as well as in airplane cargo bombs discovered last month by authorities.

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