THE DALLES, Ore. (AP) - A stack of thick, red elk steaks sits at the end of the cutting counter, growing larger with the whine of a bandsaw and the quick flash of sharp narrow blades.

This is Firehouse Meats' high season, when hunters bring in their prizes and cattle owners decide which steers and heifers will grace future dinner tables. The scene plays itself out over and over again throughout a normal day.

Frank McElroy and his cutters, William Springs and Jay Alvarez, can butcher 10 elk in a day, 18 deer, 12 to 15 hogs, or four beef carcasses. Bear, antelope, African goat, feral pigs, moose and even cougar have also passed across his cutting tables over the last couple of years.

Cougar?

"It's good eating," McElroy says. "The meat is more blonde, like pork, but actually a little lighter."

Three years ago, McElroy gave up his full-time job with Mid-Columbia Fire & Rescue for a more than full-time job as the owner of a custom meat-cutting business, along with his wife, Kate.

The change might have seemed strange to some, but McElroy had more than a few years of prior experience plus family tradition to back him up.

"My father and grandfather were meat cutters in Oregon City, where I grew up," he said. "I started when I was 10. I started standing on a box, because I was too short to reach the table."

McElroy worked with his father for 12 years, until he got out of college in 1984. He came to work at the fire department in The Dalles in 1990, and continued until October 2005, when he decided to revive the family tradition.

"When I started, I knew there was a demand for it," Frank McElroy said. "A lot of the guys in the department, and quite a few people I knew in the community had been struggling with where to have their game processed. I'd been for years playing with smoking and curing, so I decided to give it a shot."

The first few months were spent remodeling the em pty space in the Old Mill District of east The Dalles with the help of his family and some friends from the fire department.

"This was just an open room," he said, gesturing to the concrete-floored space where a crew of five cuts and packages meat and makes a variety of products for retail sale, including bacon, sausage, jerky, steaks and roasts from game, beef, bison, hog, lamb and other animals.

McElroy is usually on the job around 5 a.m., getting the work area ready, sharpening knives and planning the day's cutting, which starts around 7 a.m. and continues until around 3 p.m. Another worker comes in around 4 p.m. to begin the cleanup routine, which takes about four hours. The shop closes to the public at 5:30.

Counter sales account for about a quarter of their business, while custom cutting makes up the rest.

"Everything up here for sale is something we've made right here," says Kate McElroy, except the mustards, sauces and cheeses. The McElroys ha ve also developed the recipes for their sausage and jerky.

"We wanted to make this more like an old-fashioned butcher shop," McElroy says.

In an adjacent meat locker, well over a dozen carcasses hang, waiting for their turn on the bandsaw. The wild game is separated from the beef and other farm products by a thick, plastic curtain to avoid contact. Firehouse Meats is a U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected facility and the two types of meat need to be separated under those rules.

A sign outside warns hunters that their animals need to be cleaned and free of dirt, hair, debris and maggots, but some hunters are better at complying than others. McElroy has turned away some animals because they haven't been cleaned.

"For the most part, customers actually do really well," he says. "And most of the guys I've had in the past that didn't start that way, now come in with clean animals."

McElroy gives them a hand in that regard, holding a class once a year on how to clean animals.

"Guys usually appreciate the education," he says.

McElroy is a hunter himself, and found time this year to go out and bag his catch on opening weekend of deer season, as well as during elk season.

"I tease the guys I hunt with that the only reason they take me hunting is so that I can help them cut up the meat," he says.

The cutting is a quick, efficient process. During a little more than an hour visit, several animals pass through the blades of his crew.

McElroy runs the specially equipped butcher's bandsaw, smoothly slicing away haunches and rib sections to be cut into smaller pieces, either for ground meat or various cuts.

Working with beef is the hardest part of the job, he says. The hanging carcasses can weigh 900 pounds or more.

Standing on concrete all day is another difficult part of the job.

"It's really hard," McElroy says. "My parents did it for 30 years."

Both sons, Logan and Dyla n, help at the shop.

As McElroy and his crew work their way through the fall hunting season, another busy season is nearing. It's time to start smoking turkeys and curing hams for the holiday season.

"We're already doing that, getting prepared for Thanksgiving and Christmas," McElroy says.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.