Crews Clear Bomb-House Rubble

Crews are removing the rubble of a San Diego County home that authorities burned down last week to safely dispose of a large cache of bomb-making materials found at the site.

San Diego County spokesman Michael Drake said authorities determined the rubble does not contain toxins and will dump it in local landfills.
     
Waste from the fire will be kept wet to constrain dust to the burn site and fiber rolls will be used to ensure runoff does not go into storm drains. Workers are rinsing and recycling metal that didn't burn on Thursday, and are scooping up the ash and transporting it to the Otay Mesa landfill in a covered Dumpster.
     
Prosecutors said the rental home contained the largest amount of certain homemade explosives ever found in a single U.S. location. George Jakubec has pleaded not guilty to bomb-making and bank robbery charges. He is jailed without bail.

The situation began to unfold last month when a gardener stepped on residue from a volatile substance and set off an explosion last month. Authorities said the cluttered home was filled with so much dangerous material that they had to burn it to the ground to protect the neighborhood.

While searching the house, bomb technicians found six mason jars with highly unstable Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine, or HMTD, which is highly  volatile. Experts say it is the largest stash of HMDT ever found in the world.