Question about fighting wildfires

[u/Stories_in_my_Dreams]

I know fighting wildfires is very complex and involves a lot of input from the weather. I know old brush on the ground is basically yummy fuel for wildfires and there’s probably a lot of regulations about controlled burns and not enough manpower to clear it up manually.

My question is would goats be useful in this endeavor? Setting aside logistics of the amount of goats needed for this, but in general using goats in areas that haven’t seen much fire or maintenance in the past 10 or so years to help manage wildfires. Goats can eat a lot of the undergrowth and can traverse rugged terrain from my understanding.

I know someone near the Timber and Plaskett fires and the difference in how both are growing and spreading seems to be that Timber had previous fire nearby recently and beginning weather was helpful and Plaskett hasn’t had a fire nearby in like 50 years to curb the undergrowth.

I’m obviously not a firefighter and apologize if this question seems naive, but I’ve never seen any sort of discussion about this in general. To anyone that reads this, have a lovely day and thank you to firefighters for their amazing service!

[u/F1r3-M3d1ck-H4zN3rd]

Yeah goats get used all the time for fuel reduction in many areas.

[u/Catahooo]

Yes, goats are used in Australia to clear ground fuels, especially in areas that may be unsuitable for prescribed burning. I've seen them in action, they used a temporary electric fence perimeter to keep them contained in smaller areas, I was told that for large areas some operators even use gps shock collars with geofence perimeters.

[u/BigWhiteDog]

As a retired firefighter that has goats (used to belong to the livestock guardian dog rescue I was with) I can say that goats are great for fuels reduction but they also can be VERY destructive and they need to be contained to where you need the work done, which means fencing and goat herders. They aren't really practical for places like the Los Padres NF. They are perfect for urban and suburban environments.

[u/VisceralVirus]

Goats are fantastical at fuel removal in areas that allow them (i.e, places with no plants poisonous yo them, or predators)

[u/DBDIY4U]

So I happen to be a firefighter from California who owns a herd of goats and is married into a cattle ranching family. Bottom line, any grazing drastically helps the situation. In my experience cattle are better for larger scale grazing, have less potential for negative impact on the natural setting, and are more hardy than goats. If it is a smaller property you want clean and don't care about the natural setting as much goats are better. Also, this is more of a maintenance tool. If you have 50 years of duff and build up, no grazing is going to be very effective at catching up. The animals will not eat all the dead thatched organic matter. I recently put goats on to a piece of ground in the valley that had been overgrown for a while and they trampled the vegetation more than ate it. I wish I could find a picture I took from up north where a forest fire basically stopped at a fence because of cattle grazing.

That said, I was up on the Timber fire and most of the area was not really conducive to large scale grazing in my opinion. Maybe smaller scale goat grazing to help with vegetation management on a smaller property. But understand this is not a quick stop the fire situation, it is a long term land management strategy. We have these out of control fires in California because the environmentalists here have stood in the way of grazing and maintenance fires.

[u/Krapmeister]

The only problem is you have exchanged a bushfire risk for a feral goat problem.

[u/AskingQuestion777]

Yes, they are not super common but definitely used. There is a disagreement between the use of sheep and goats as far as pay for the Shepard is concerned.
The Kern County Board of Supervisors approved a $2 million state grant for sheep grazing to lower wildfire risks.

[u/dave54athotmailcom]

Goats are used frequently, mostly in urban areas.  Not a new idea and is done now.