Unusual trouble putting out a fire in a second-story garage apartment in Forest Hill Sunday night led to the discovery of what police called a "suspected meth lab."
Firefighters were dispatched just before 8 p.m. to a two-story wood building detached from the main home on a property in the 1300 block of Boggs Road, according to a notice of investigation from the Office of the State Fire Marshal's Office.
Task force members found at the apartment what they believe to be precursor items used in meth lab operations, according to Capt. Lee Dunbar, of the task force.
Investigators are trying to determine if any product was made in the garage, Dunbar said, calling it a "suspected meth lab."
"If you've got the precursors, chemicals A, B and C in a pot, but not final product, we still call it a meth lab," he said. "We need to determine if any methamphetamine was produced."
Much of the evidence, he said, burned up the fire, but what was seized is being analyzed.
"There was some sort of combustion at the scene as a result of what we believe are precursors," he said.
Those items were seized and are being analyzed, a process Dunbar said could take weeks, or even months.
When they arrived, firefighters found the lower floor burning, according to Oliver Alkire, senior state deputy fire marshal and spokesman for the agency.
"They had difficulty extinguishing the fire, and they thought that was odd," Alkire said. "Typically water should put out fire, but they had extreme difficulty."
While a cause of the fire had not been determined by Monday, "we cannot rule out it was a chemical reaction that caused the fire," Alkire said.
When firefighters couldn't put out the fire right away, they suspected the building could be a meth lab and called the Harford County Narcotics Task Force, Alkire said.