Oxnard, CA – December 10, 2017
Reiter Affiliated Companies (RAC) is humbled to stand alongside our employees, family members, community partners and the Ag community as we collectively work through this crisis. We our deeply grateful for the brave firefighters who have fought to protect lives and property, and our hearts go out to those who have experienced loss due to the Thomas Fire.
Since the onset of the fire, the safety of our workforce has and will continue to be our top priority. Our safety and production teams have closely monitored conditions in the field around the clock and followed the guidance of public safety, emergency services and air quality agencies.
We cannot stress enough how fluid a situation this is when air quality can change hour by hour. If air quality reaches unsafe conditions, for the safety of our employees, we have and will continue to cease operations. In Santa Barbara County, where mandatory evacuations have taken place, we have currently closed operations.
When conditions are safe, and in partnership with our employees, we are resuming operations. This is a RAC management decision which is determined ranch by ranch on an ongoing, sometimes hourly, basis.
In addition, we are following Cal/OSHA guidelines (for Worker Health and Safety in Wildfire Regions), and have distributed N95 respirator masks to all RAC field operations in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. In the impacted areas, the usage of these masks are mandatory for all of our outdoor field employees.
RAC continues to diligently monitor fire and air quality reports around the clock to ensure the safety of our workforce.
In addition, we, along with other agricultural growers, remain committed to supporting our employees, to directly assist in reducing the economic impact created as a result of the Thomas fire.
Once the immediate fire danger passes, we look to provide assistance and support to our workers, their families, and the community with the rebuilding process.