For the medical marijuana industry, smoking weed is usually a good thing. But a raging wildfire in California is bringing a bleaker meaning to the phrase.

A wildfire in northern California that started last week has burned more than 69,600 acres as of Friday morning, including marijuana farms. More than 13,000 people in the area have been evacuated, and the fire is only 45% contained, according to Cal Fire, the state agency responsible for fire protection.

The agency reports that 43 residences and 53 outbuildings — auxiliary structures like barns and sheds —have been destroyed, eight structures have been damaged and about 6,500 homes, buildings and other structures are threatened by the spreading flames.

For medical cannabis dispensaries in the region, the burned supply means additional pressure on an industry that is already under duress.

“We were already under pressure from the drought,” says Timothy Anderson, purchasing manager at Harborside Health Center, an Oakland, Calif.-based dispensary. “Prices are high and availability is low…it was an already constricted market. Now it’s more constricted.”

Smoke clouds form over California wildfire

Medical marijuana is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia, and is used to help treat epilepsy, HIV and cancer patients. With the destroyed plants, acquiring affordable medical cannabis in the region may become a long-term issue.

The extent of the effects on the market won’t be visible until a few weeks or months in the future, when the damaged crops would have been stocked on dispensary shelves, Anderson says.

Harborside Health Center serves about 200,000 patients and operates similarly to a food cooperative, where member patients can grow and sell to each other through the dispensary. Anderson says a few of the member farms have suffered significant damage from the fires, and one farm’s buildings and outposts were completely destroyed.

“I had to help another farmer get new plants,” Anderson says. “They’re having trouble getting young plants to thrive because of the smoke. There’s a range of issues.”

Such problems include ash getting caught in the sticky resin of mature plants making them not saleable, damaged farm equipment and water shortages.

The Emerald Growers Association, a professional network for marijuana farmers and small business owners, said that up to a dozen of its few hundred (waiting on a more specific number) member farms in northern California had been evacuated.

“Our network is very much in touch with [the fire’s progress],” says Hezekiah Allen, the organization’s chair and executive director. “It’s a crisis, it’s a tragedy.”

Allen doesn’t predict the fire damage will have a significant impact on cannabis supply and prices overall, however the longstanding issues of distribution and regulation may make it difficult for the affected regions to receive replacement product.

“There’s a lot of land in California and a tremendous network of producers and suppliers,” he said. “But retailers in urban areas may have trouble finding supply. It’s much more of an issue of lack of distribution and lack of regulation.”

That’s just as well: [Harborside’s Anderson added that it is illegal to transport marijuana across state lines, so dispensaries are unable to look to growers in neighboring Oregon for assistance.

While there are few bright spots in the wake of the destructive fires, one is that the California community can unite despite opinions on cannabis, Allen says.

“When you need a volunteer fire truck, it doesn’t matter who’s driving it. People are doing what they can to keep each other safe,” Allen says. “…Man, does that enmity and animosity go away when the fires come.”

Allen added that some Emerald Growers member farms have also been aiding in fire containment by providing water from their ponds to Cal Fire firefighters and neighbors.

The unpredictability of wildfires leaves farmers with little to do to prepare for them. “There’s not much to do besides crossing your fingers and hoping it’s not a bad fire year,” Anderson says.