A 20-year-old Arlington man was charged Monday with manufacturing methamphetamine and causing an explosion and fire Dec. 21 that led to residents of three other apartments being ousted.
Matthew Rodney Warren, 20, was in the Snohomish County Jail being held on $7,500 bail.
Arlington police were called to the apartments, which are owned by Compass Health, after firefighters responded to the small fire and explosion in the 200 block of E. Burke Avenue. Officers spotted items associated with manufacturing methamphetamine.
The explosion knocked out a bedroom window, knocking it and the window frame about 15 feet from the wall, deputy prosecutor Matt Hunter said.
Warren initially told officers he accidentally had ignited a box of matches, and it got out of control. He later told officers that he had accidentally caught a tissue on fire, Hunter said.
Officers served a search warrant and confiscated numerous chemicals and equipment associated with manufacturing methamphetamine, Hunter said.
Warren had been living in his mother’s apartment since summer, Hunter said. The apartments serve low-income residents.
At the time of the explosion, his mother told investigators that her son yelled to her that the “police were coming and that they were in trouble,” Hunter said.
Residents have been kept out of their apartments since the explosion. Officials with the Snohomish Health District are expected to inspect the units for possible contamination today, said Jonelle Fenton-Wallace, an environmental health specialist with the health district.
“Most of the hazardous materials have been removed. We just want to make sure there isn’t any residual” in the other apartments, Fenton-Wallace said.
The apartment where the drug was being made will need to be cleaned by a state-certified contractor before it will be habitable. It’s unlikely the other apartments had been contaminated, Fenton-Wallace said.
Some residents are staying with family, and others are staying at a motel.
Compass Health is proceeding with evicting the resident, who lives in the unit where the drug was being made, said Terry Clark director of development services for Compass.
If convicted, Warren could be sentenced to more than five years in prison.
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