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This pot entrepreneur lost all his marijuana to a California wildfire

butte fire, san andreas, california, smoke, fire, wildfire
Billowing smoke rises above a residence as the Butte Fire burns in San Andreas, California September 11, 2015. The so-called Butte Fire has destroyed six homes and two outbuildings since it erupted on Wednesday near the former gold mining town of Jackson. Governor Jerry Brown on Friday declared a state of emergency for Amador and Calaveras counties, which were damaged by the blaze. REUTERS/Noah Berger Noah Berger/Reuters

Mike Ray raced down California Highway 26 toward a mountainside engulfed in flames.

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The pot entrepreneur had been at an event in San Francisco when he got an urgent call from his brother. The Butte wildfire spread to Jesus Maria Road and was inching closer to their family farm and the 99 plants that helped supply his medical marijuana company, Bloom Farms.

Ash fell like snowflakes, gathering in clumps under the cargo van's windshield wipers. Mike's phone buzzed to life with texts from his siblings, but he couldn't bear to read the updates.

By the time he arrived, Mike's parents had abandoned the property under a mandatory evacuation order. The power went out the day before. Some changes of clothes and the dogs were all they had time to grab.

Mike met the family in the nearby town of San Andreas under a moonless sky. Flames as tall as buildings claimed hundred-year-old pine trees in the distance. The air was so thick with smoke, "it hurt your lungs," Mike said.

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butte fire, mountain ranch, california
A home burns as the Butte Fire rages near Mountain Ranch, California in this September 11, 2015 file photo. In the last decade, major wildfires in California - and losses in the billions of dollars - have led some big insurance companies to stop writing homeowners policies for many of the nearly 2 million households that are considered at high risk of fire. Allstate Corp, for instance, in 2007 stopped writing new homeowners policies in the Golden State altogether. Others, like Farmers Insurance and State Farm, have become more discriminating about the areas they will insure homes. To match Insight USA-WILDFIRES/INSURANCE REUTERS/Noah Berger/Files Noah Berger/Reuters

The 36-year-old wasn't ready to give up.

"My brother and I were very anxious to see what was going on," Mike told Tech Insider. "We got into his truck and drove back up to the property, being very cautious."

The brothers managed to talk their way past several law enforcement checkpoints, explaining the situation. Eventually, just a mile outside the property, they bumped into a California Highway Patrol officer who refused to let them go further for their own protection.

"He was like, 'The fire's right over there,'" Mike remembered. "'This is it.'"

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The brothers parked a few miles up the road from the farm, where they could take in the view from across a canyon.

"At that point, it had not burned. We sat there for a couple hours," Mike said. "Around midnight, we saw the fire come over the crest. We pretty much knew it was going to go up."

Mike and Adam Ray watched their childhood home, everything it contained, and the cannabis burn in a cloud of smoke.

michael ray, mike ray, bloom farms
Adam Ray stands in front of his former childhood home. Courtesy of Michael Ray

In October 2015, Joel Warner at The International Business Times published a heart-wrenching account of the events at Bloom Farms, fresh after Butte fire torched it. After meeting Mike at another marijuana business event last fall, I followed up with him to see how the farm was doing.

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"[It's] very burned," Mike told me, sitting in a San Francisco coffee shop. He scratched his beard with fingernails caked in dirt. "Nothing you could do," he later added.

Devastation everywhere

For Mike and other marijuana growers in California's Gold Country, catastrophe seemed inevitable.

The state is currently experiencing its worst drought in 1,200 years. High temperatures and reduced rainfall have dried up reservoirs and river systems, ruined once-rich soil, and turned forests to tinder. While the number of fires is actually on par with recent years, far more land has been charred because of its vulnerability.

California's farmers have been hit hard, and the burgeoning legal marijuana industry — which saw $5.4 billion in sales in 2015, and is expected to grow 25% this year — is suffering as much as anyone. The International Business Times reported hundreds of California pot farms were destroyed, with financial losses in the millions.

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Mike guesses most pot farms in the region, like his, were uninsured. Most insurance companies don't know how to value cannabis' worth, and those that do offer risk protection for growers make it expensive to do so, he added.

"There's a common misconception that cannabis growers are all rolling in cash. The reality is, you don't meet a lot of wealthy cultivators … who wear gold chains and drive Ferraris," Mike said. "They live a respectable life. They get by."

bloom farms
Bloom Farms before the fire. Courtesy of Michael Ray

Mike's parents, a former airline pilot and a homemaker, bought the land in Calaveras County in the early '70s. A commune called it home back then. The residents cultivated marijuana plants for their own use, as is common in the region. Later, the surrounding land provided a humble livelihood for growers, both medicinal marijuana producers and black-market purveyors.

Mike, a former Wall Street trader, took over the property in 2010. Since then he has invested some $100,000 into staff and supplies for the marijuana grown on his parents' land.

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marijuana bloom farms
The bounty at Bloom Farms. Courtesy of Michael Ray

Mike expanded beyond growing in 2014 when he created Bloom Farms, a medicinal marijuana company that makes a vape pen, the Highlighter, sold at dispensaries throughout California. The company extracts high-cannabidiol (CBD) cannabis oil from the plants and packages the oil in cartridges for its signature product.

Mike counts himself lucky, seeing that he sources cannabis from multiple family farms, so the loss of his 99 plants shouldn't impact his 2016 earnings severely. Still, he said it's been hard to watch what's happening to the industry.

"One of the devastating things about the fire is that people worked all year for their income, and it got burned up," Mike said. "They're pretty much out of luck until next year."

The road to recovery

Two days after Butte fire barbecued Bloom Farms, Mike got another call from his brother.

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"Adam said, 'I'm going back up there. I've got my dirt bikes in the back of the car. Are you coming?'" Mike remembered. "I said, 'Yeah, absolutely.'"

michael ray, mike ray, bloom farms
Courtesy of Michael Ray

Wearing work pants and helmets, they rode bikes down familiar trails, carefully avoiding fallen power lines. Twigs crunched under their tires.

Mike paused at a tree with molten lava innards to take a picture on his phone.

michael ray, mike ray, bloom farms
Courtesy of Michael Ray

When they arrived at Bloom Farms, "it was a war zone," Mike said. Only the barn, an 80-year-old structure their father inherited when he bought the property, and the tractor survived.

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"The universe was saying, 'We spared your tractor,'" he said. "'It's time to get to work.'"

For two days, Mike, Adam, and a friend walked house to house, putting out patches of smoldering brush in their neighbors' yards with rakes, shovels, and garden hoses. The purpose of doing so was to eliminate any chance these hot spots would burn up the lawn and claim more houses.

michael ray, mike ray, bloom farms
Courtesy of Michael Ray

Butte fire destroyed 921 structures total and left thousands of Calaveras residents homeless. For weeks, tents and makeshift shelters lined the roads. Some were forced to go to the bathroom in buckets. Sharon Torrence, public information officer for Calaveras County, tells Tech Insider the properties must be cleaned of debris and toxic pollutants before residents can begin to rebuild.

While Bloom Farms, the property, remains a pile of dust, Bloom Farms, the company, is still in business. In March, the company announced it helped raise $25,000 for Butte fire relief in Calaveras County. It provided Highlighter pens to Oakland dispensary Magnolia Wellness for free, and 100% of the revenue went to supporting community needs and soil erosion prevention.

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Every day, Mike ponders the fire.

"If we had a rain [shower] even two, three weeks before, it might not have been as bad," Mike said. "If we weren't in the middle of a five-year drought, maybe that fire would have moved much slower — may have been able to be contained."

"It's just bad luck," he added, shaking his head. "What can you do?"

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