Hemp harvest season is over and now it's time for farmers to process and dry their product. Different farms use different techniques to dry their product, but fire crews says some of the drying facilities have been starting fires. There have been 3 fires in hemp drying facilities within the last week in Jackson and Josephine counties. The most recent one burned down a barn in Medford along with 3,000 pounds of hemp.
"There's a lot of variables in a hemp drying process. Obviously they have a lot of electric with the heating. Those are some of the things were going to be looking at, the electrical system in here as well as any other equipment that they used," says Jimmy Johnson with Fire District 5.
NewsWatch 12 talked with a local hemp farmer today about how hemp is dried. Daniel Richardson owns Lane Creek Hemp Co. He says some people use heaters but he only uses fans and dehumidifiers because he has less hemp than a lot of farms.