The Los Altos Hills County Fire District commissioners have embarked on a pro-active program of weed and brush abatement, and they are gruff on goats.
Goats lead the pack as the latest idea in fire prevention for open spaces, and some may be coming to the city-owned Byrne Preserve in Los Altos Hills.
Goats munch the underbrush on slopes too steep or inaccessible for fire crews and have been used with success in Menlo Park and Oakland.
The Los Altos Hills County Fire District commissioners want to bring them here.
At the July 29 meeting of the fire commissioners, they continued with plans to use goats for “brush fire hazard reduction,” per their agenda.
“We’ve agreed to the concept,” said Jay Stone, president of the Los Altos Hills County Fire District Commissioners.
“It’s just a question of when.”
Because the concept has become so popular the goats are all booked up. “You have to reserve them a long time in advance.”
So the commissioners are in line for goats for next spring.
In the Byrne Preserve, “the hill is so steep, a man can’t stand on it,” Stone said. “You’d have to lower him in with a rope. The goats come with a Peruvian shepherd and dogs. That’s the package.”
The animals ride in on a truck, said Fire Commissioner Bill Siegel.
They eat “poison oak and brush. You leave them just long enough in one spot to clear the brush,” then they are moved on.
The goat program is “environmentally sound,” said a spokeswoman with the Santa Clara County Fire Department, with whom the commissioners contract for fire protection. “The goats are very effective – they eat a lot,” she said.
“With a tractor (clearing brush) you must be careful not to kick out a spark and start a fire,” she said.
That’s how the May 16 fire started that burned four acres on the Fenwick land in Los Altos Hills – a spark from a tractor.
So goats sound good to the commissioners.
“It’s a way of fire prevention. It’s worth trying,” Siegel said.
“There’s no downside,” Stone said. “Maybe it’s not the cleanest way to operate – but so what? It’s a preserve.”
