Sand Springs Explosion Brings Inspection Quality Into Question

When Damien O’Daniel returned from his lunch break at Releaf Labs on April 27, 2023, a coworker was operating a hazardous marijuana extraction machine with the gas clamps wide open. Butane poured into the air rapidly, but the alarms didn’t sound. 

If the system was up to code, the odorless gas would have triggered an alarm. But it wasn’t, according to court documents. Releaf Labs had recently moved into a new, unlicensed building after a wildfire damaged its first facility, O’Daniel said.

O’Daniel told his coworker that they needed to close the valves. His coworker picked up a battery-powered screwdriver and pulled the trigger. They were immediately engulfed in flames. 

Fire raced up O’Daniel’s legs, setting his pants ablaze and melting his skin. He ripped his pants off as he ran from the building. Recovery lasted about a month in the hospital; he had second- and third-degree burns and needed skin grafts. 

He recognized the danger and recalled telling family members it was only a matter of time before the facility caught fire, but employees kept operating. 

O’Daniel said the operational margins are so thin that the owner said he couldn’t afford to stop working after their other building was damaged. 

“If the fire marshal had seen that building, we wouldn’t have been operating,” O’Daniel said. 

Processors sometimes use gas to refine the plant into consumable products, such as edibles. In the eight years since Oklahoma voters approved medical marijuana, explosions have occurred at several processing facilities, including the 2023 fire in Logan County and in Sand Springs this August, where two workers died.

Fire marshals inspect facilities before they can begin operating, but subsequent inspections fall under other agencies, such as the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, and they don’t specifically focus on fire safety. 

The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority did not respond to multiple requests for information.

Fire marshals inspect for fire and life safety compliance. They look for things such as fire suppression systems, gas and smoke detectors and proper ventilation. Once a facility passes inspection, it’s issued a certificate of occupancy. Fire marshals are not required to return to a processing facility once they’ve issued that certificate, unless the business changes location or use, such as a dispensary also becoming a grow farm. 

“So, when we leave, things change,” said Darryl Beebe, a chief agent at the State Fire Marshal.  “Once we leave, there’s nothing that mandates us to come back.” 

Some processing facilities never received a fire marshal inspection because certificates of occupancy weren’t required between 2018 and 2024. 

“There may be some out there that have never been permitted,” Beebe said. “We don’t know because the agencies that issue their registration or licenses don’t know either.”

Sand Springs Fire Marshal Mike Nobles told the owner of Solos Extracts to shut down his marijuana processing booth in January because of an outdated sprinkler system. The facility exploded Aug. 27 around 1 a.m.

Nobles said he had no reason to believe they were still operating. The explosion destroyed the building and killed two employees.  

“When we were in that area for any other reason, there were no signs they were operating,” Nobles said. “We never saw any issues there, or were notified of any issues by neighboring units.”

In towns with fewer than 10,000 people, a certified inspector does not have to conduct fire safety inspections, Beebe said. In small towns, the dog catcher or water meter inspector could be reviewing facilities. 

Getting Licensed

In order to open a marijuana processing facility, prospective operators have to go through multiple inspections by the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, the Liquefied Petroleum and Gas Board, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and a fire marshal. 

There are two types of processing: hazardous and non-hazardous. Hazardous processing uses flammable gases such as butane and propane in a specialty processing booth. Non-hazardous processing uses ice and water to extract resin glands from the plant to create bubble hash. The hash is then used to make rosin, which people smoke.

Caleb Neal, owner of Native Veteran, is a marijuana grower and non-hazardous processor. He said the ice and water process takes longer, but yields a cleaner product with no chemicals. 

His business is in Delaware County, where no county-specific building regulations apply. Instead, he had to follow state building codes and state fire marshal rules when applying for a license. The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs inspected the facility before he opened. 

The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority conducts annual compliance inspections and annual audits for every licensed marijuana business. They inspect things such as inventory tracking, sampling and testing, packaging and labeling, patient transactions, transportation, waste and advertising. 

A separate state agency, the Liquefied Petroleum and Gas Board, issues hazardous processing facilities a Class 8 unodorized gas permit after conducting an initial inspection. Business owners must submit detailed written plans describing the use and location of gas cylinder storage and any LP gas plumbing in the facility. The Liquefied Petroleum and Gas Board also conducts annual and unannounced inspections to ensure the facility still has the correct amount of gas and the proper system. 

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs registers processors after they obtain a certificate of occupancy from the fire marshal. They typically inspect plants for proper tracking identification and ensure all other laws and regulations are being followed on site. 

The State of Processing

The state fire marshal has 13 officers on staff. They inspect every marijuana processing facility, grow and dispensary in unincorporated areas. 

Lawmakers placed a moratorium on new marijuana dispensary, grower and processor licenses in August 2022 so the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority could catch up on inspections and licenses being processed.  Despite the moratorium, as of Sept. 11, 35 facilities were waiting to be approved by the state fire marshal. Most of those applications were for building updates and changes of ownership.  

Debris remains after an explosion at a marijuana processing facility in Sand Springs. Two people were killed in the blast. (Rip Stell/Oklahoma Watch).

As of Sept. 14, 33 hazardous processing facilities had active gas licenses from the Liquefied Petroleum and Gas Board. Although they receive inspections from the Liquefied Petroleum and Gas Board, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, fire and life safety inspections are conducted by the fire marshal, and that’s required before the certificate of occupancy is issued. 

From 2018 to 2024, buildings housing marijuana businesses of any kind weren’t required to have a certificate of occupancy. They only needed a certificate of compliance signed by a municipal official who didn’t need any training in fire and life safety code compliance. 

The rapid construction of Oklahoma’s medical marijuana law left safety gaps that are still being filled by an underfunded and short-staffed state fire marshal office. 

Rural Responsibility 

In 2020, Langston’s assistant police chief signed an OMMA certificate of compliance for Three Hombres Cannabis LLC. Neither a fire marshal nor a Liquefied Petroleum and Gas Board employee inspected the facility because it was not required at the time. One year later, it caught fire. 

Current Langston Chief of Police Thomas Gipson said he found no record of the fire. The assistant chief who signed the certificate is no longer employed there. 

Gipson said 60 officers have cycled through the department in the last six years. He said he and his employees no longer conduct compliance inspections because of the licensing moratorium. 

A grow facility in Tonkawa caught fire in 2023 due to faulty wiring, Chief of Police Nick Payne said.

“After the inspectors are gone, they change things,” Payne said. “That’s common.”

In Jones, two fires broke out at marijuana processing facilities in 2021 and 2023. Tim Weathers, the Jones City zoning administrator, inspected one of these buildings. 

Weathers said that at the time, he and other inspectors had basic training in building, heat and air compliance. The city fire marshal also inspected the building at the time. 

He said everything was good to go on the day of the inspection, and two months before his follow-up, the building caught fire. 

Photos from marijuana processing facilities provided by the state fire marshal show multiple fire code violations. (Courtesy Photos/State Fire Marshal)

Just 15 minutes after the fire, a Liquefied Petroleum and Gas Board officer arrived on scene. 

“I didn’t know these people existed,” Weathers said. “This guy came walking up with a badge and a gun and took over the investigation.” 

Weathers said that in smaller towns, there were, and probably still are, people with no training looking at those facilities. 

Nobles and Beebe both have extensive training and on-the-job experience in fire and life safety inspections, which lets them inspect facilities in a way an untrained municipal official might not. 

“I enjoyed having the state fire marshal as a second set of eyes looking over everything,” Weathers said. 

Legislative Action 

With just 13 officers, state fire marshal inspectors have a lot of ground to cover. The past nine years brought significant change for fire marshals across the state.

In 2017, lawmakers zeroed out the state fire marshals’ funding, and they became a self-funded agency. In 2018, medical marijuana was legalized and the fire marshals had a new type of business to inspect. In 2024, certificates of occupancy were made mandatory, causing an influx of thousands of applications. 

Beebe recalled standing in his office, surrounded by stacks of paper, building plans three feet tall, some written on cardboard and sticky notes. Sometimes he received empty envelopes from business owners who just needed to prove they sent something to the office. 

He pulled out piles of building plans that were just doodled rectangles with door openings. Others were more crafty, with drawings of pets included. 

“I can’t approve something like that,” he said. 

The licensing moratorium has not solved the problem of unqualified inspectors. Beebe said he recently received a complaint from an anonymous person in the marijuana industry who raised concerns about differences in inspection quality between the state fire marshal and the city government. 

Both Beebe and Nobles said they wanted better communication between agencies at the city and state levels. 

“There are numerous agencies involved, and I think that’s a whole lot of irons in the fire from different people,” Nobles said. “I would like to see simplified communication. A statewide system would be very beneficial.” 

Beebe recalled the monthly meetings he attended for almost two years with the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics where he told other officials there would be problems if there wasn’t a specific hazardous processing license. 

“Communication between agencies probably isn’t the best,” Beebe said.

Beebe suggested creating a specific task force to address hazardous processing facilities, saying that because there’s a state minimum, there should be regular follow-up. 

But some lawmakers said they haven’t been approached about changing any requirements or creating new lines of communication. 

Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton met with district attorneys, fire marshals, law enforcement officials and local agencies that deal with these operations every day to ask what they are seeing on the ground, what is working and what needs to change, Paxton spokesman Alex Gerszewski said.

“If law enforcement, fire officials or others who work in this area believe additional regulations or resources are needed, Pro Tem Paxton wants to hear those concerns,” Gerszewski said. “If there is legislation that makes sense and will make the industry safer, he is willing to listen and take appropriate steps moving forward, as he has done in the past.”

Sen. Darcy Jech, R-Kingfisher, said he hasn’t received a request for legislation on this topic but is conducting an interim study focused on repurposing abandoned marijuana grows. Many grows were abandoned after their owners were arrested and restrictions were tightened on certificates of occupancy requirements and other licensing rules. 

Sen. Carri Hicks, D-Oklahoma City, also hasn’t received any specific request from fire marshal staff for legislation about returning to hazardous processing facilities. She said it’s been about four years since she last heard from business owners who had to wait months for their inspection from the state fire marshal because of the dramatic increase in certificate of occupancy applications. 

“It makes sense that we’d go back now and talk about safeguarding communities,” Hicks said. 

Beebe said the state fire marshal’s office could change administrative rules to require a yearly operational permit for hazardous processing facilities. Or the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority could implement rules requiring all hazardous processing facilities to receive an annual inspection from the State Fire Marshal, regardless of where they are. 

But that could infringe on the authority of smaller municipalities and spread the already thin fire marshal’s office even thinner. 

Accidents happen in every industry, and almost every industry that operates in a building has to be inspected by a fire marshal or other municipal officer. 

“We don’t demonize a restaurant when they have a propane explosion,” Caleb Neal said. “They don’t go after other businesses like they go after us.”

The explosions and fires in Sand Springs, Langston, Tonkawa and Logan County aren’t just a product of lagging legislation and miscommunication between departments. 

“Our number one goal with these things is to try to prevent an event like this from happening,” Nobles said. “That’s really the reason for fire code, for building code, for all of our life safety code stuff that we enforce, and, unfortunately, there are occasionally bad actors who will try to skirt around those.” 

Beebe said every industry has its pitfalls and its bad apples. 

“I don’t care that you’re marijuana,” Beebe said, “I don’t care what you grow. You could be growing something completely different. We care about the building, life safety, and the hazards within. That’s what our focus is.”

Brenna Witchey is a reporting intern at Oklahoma Watch. Contact her at bwitchey@oklahomawatch.org.

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