Traffickers in California fire probe

Bushfire investigators in California are looking for marijuana growers tied to a Mexican drug cartel they suspect of igniting a blaze that has charred more than 35,200ha of a national forest.

The La Brea fire, which erupted on August 8 in the Los Padres National Forest in the remote Santa Barbara County mountains, was believed to be the first major bushfire in the state caused by drug traffickers, US Forest Service spokesman Jim Turner said.