Explosives house site 'safe'

ESCONDIDO - Two days after an explosives-laden house was destroyed in a carefully orchestrated blaze that played out on United States television, the site of the so-called "bomb factory" was declared safe by California authorities.

"[The] controlled fire destroyed all of the explosives and hazardous materials at the site," San Diego County said after a bomb and arson unit sifted through the ashes and found nothing dangerous.

Crews scraped several centimetres of dirt off the property to ensure there was no hazardous residue left.

Now state, county and private workers will begin hauling soil, ash and scrap from the house to a landfill.

George Jakubec, 54, an unemployed software consultant who was renting the house, has pleaded not guilty to charges of making destructive devices and robbing three banks.

Prosecutors say the home contained the largest amount of certain homemade explosives ever found in a single American US location.

Fire and law enforcement officials said the home was filled with so much dangerous material they had to burn it to the ground to protect the neighbourhood. The toxins inside the home were neutralised within 20 minutes without any major explosions as experts had predicted after tests, officials said.

- AP