Glendale uses goats to graze on city parcels and avoid wildfires

As communities prepare for the wildfire season, some turn to goats to clear the brush.

For years Leticia Gonzalez, who lived in a hilly neighborhood near Chevy Chase Canyon prone to wildfires, got help from students in the Glendale Youth Alliance, a group that offers mentored employment to youth and who removed the dry brush and weeds near her home.

But as she was preparing for the wildfire season this year, Gonzalez and three of her neighbors decided to try something new. They contacted the Ventura Brush Goats and asked for help.

On June 21, a double-decker trailer filled with 277 goats parked in the Chevy Chase neighborhood, and a herder unloaded the animals.

For the next five days, goats were munching on brush and weeds across large swaths of land near Gonzalez’s home unbothered by the leathery leaves of agave plants.

“It’s a huge property that the city needed to clear,” said Gonzalez, a board member of the Chevy Chase Estates Association. “There was no way they could find someone to clear it without endangering themselves” on the steep terrain. “But not the goats,” said said, who handled the terrain like pros.

As fire departments and state firefighters attack wildfires in Santa Barbara, Fresno and San Diego and prepare for the peak of the wildfire season, many turn to heavy equipment and herbicides to control vegetation.

But others turn to a more organic approach, hiring companies to provide sheep and goats who clear the land and help prevent fast-spreading wildfires.

Gabe Reza, senior fire and environmental specialist with the Glendale Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Bureau, said the city of Glendale had used goats for four years to clear brush.

“Every year our city council has been approving more and more funding to allow us to (use goats to clear city land),” he said.

Initially, the city of Glendale approved the budget to use goats to clear a couple of acres owned by the city. And that number grew this year to 30 acres of city land.

“It’s gaining a lot of momentum and the public loves it,” Reza said.

This year, the Fire Prevention Bureau was given $30,000 to find a vendor to clear the brush on the city’s property. The price paid off.

“Goats do work that we wouldn’t be able to do,” Reza said. “These goats are amazing on the steepest terrain. They will be able to ‘torch’ areas that we wouldn’t be able to reach by hand.”

Goats also proved to be hard workers.

“I saw goats jump on top of each other to get some of the branches,” he said. “It’s amazing. They do a great job.”

Gonzalez of Chevy Chase said she and her friends enjoy watching goats running along the challenging slopes  and munching.

“They are still munching away and going through the area,” she said. “We are very pleased.”

Several days ago, the city hosted a greet-and-meet event featuring the goats, at which children were allowed to pet the animals.

Seeing the goats in action, Gonzalez said, inspired her neighbors to express interest in hiring goats next year.

“It was an effort to let other folks know in our neighborhood that this is something that we can do,” she said.