Food Safety & Predicting the Fire Season

Food Safety & Predicting the Fire Season. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

Food safety is one topic that just seems to keep coming up. We all want to know that the food we eat is safe. Stephanie Page, Director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Animal Health programs says they focus on outreach to the food industry as the best way to meet the goal.

PAGE:  Our approach is to help our customers comply with food safety regulations by educating them– trying to show them something that could become a problem in the future and explaining why the regulations exist and helping them get into compliance.

So how will this fire season shape up? Last year was a bad year for fires and with the continuing drought across much of the west and northwest it could potentially be another bad one. Besides concern over protecting forests and homes the Boise Bureau of Land Management is also looking at how to protect the sage grouse who makes it's home in many of these fire prone areas and is an endangered species. Over the next few years, the Bureau of Land Management is going to put in fuel breaks to break up the more flammable grasses, which will help slow down and contain fires. In addition they plan to have firefighter ready and in place to help protect the native bird specie.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.