More Rain & Wildfire Protection

Idaho is preparing for the 2016 fire season. Officials have boosted the state's wildfire protection budget on Tuesday by about 10 percent. That means an additional $920-thousand dollars will be available to help prevent small fires from becoming major disasters. Governor Otter said it should actually help save money in the long run since it will reduce the number of major fires that take millions of dollars to combat. Idaho taxpayers will have to content with some $60-million of firefighting costs this year.

I'm not sure if Mother Nature didn't get the memo but the northwest has been getting a fairly good deal of precipitation in the form of both rain and snow. Meteorologist Brad Rippey notes a very wet Christmas week may be in store.

RIPPEY: We do expect colder than normal conditions in much of the Western United States . In terms of precipitation patterns, well there's going to be plenty of storminess around. It's rare to see a time period like this when you see above normal precipitation virtually from coast to coast but that's what we expect from the 22nd through the 28th . Everybody is going to be wet. Lots of snow across the western U.S.

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