San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies shot and killed a camouflage-clad gunman Monday during a shootout with three people protecting a marijuana crop in mountains north of Fontana, officials said.
A manhunt for two others involved in the firefight continued into the night, with deputies searching the rugged terrain on foot and in four-wheelers. Late Monday, the search was called off, with no arrests made.
The shots were fired as deputies working with the U.S. Forest Service were preparing to destroy a large marijuana field near Lytle Creek in the San Gabriel Mountains, an area north of Fontana marked by steep hills and manzanita, said sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller.
State drug enforcement officials said they had seen a major increase in illicit pot farms, in part because drug traffickers consider marijuana more lucrative and easier to produce than methamphetamine.
Growers often set up their marijuana farms in remote national forests and parks, where large crops are hard for law enforcement officials to find. Doing so also allows drug traffickers to avoid having their own land or assets confiscated by authorities.
The state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting already has seized a record 2,232,937 marijuana plants this year -- the vast majority on public lands. It seized 1.7 million plants in 2006, triple the amount confiscated in 2005.
"With the drug trafficking organization as organized as it is, they are less likely to grow on private land," said Special Agent Holly Swartz of the state Department of Justice. "It's not an individual effort anymore. They need more remote land to grow more marijuana."
During Monday's raid in Lytle Creek, at least three people dressed in camouflage and armed with automatic weapons were camping at the site and fired on the deputies as they approached the field about 7:30 a.m., said Sgt. Rick Ells of the California Highway Patrol.
The deputies returned fire and fatally wounded one gunman, who had climbed up a hill apparently to seek a better shooting position.
He was taken to a ranger station, where he was pronounced dead, Miller said.
About 40 deputies, aided by a helicopter, searched for the other two gunmen. Authorities requested four-wheel-drive vehicles as backup to navigate the area's steep terrain. California Highway Patrol officers closed Lytle Creek Road to aid the search, officials said.
They estimate the field contained about 2,500 marijuana plants with a street value of $6 million.
