By Shelli DeRobertis
San Bernardino County Sun (California)
Copyright 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
CHINO HILLS, Calif. — More than 200 chomping and stomping goats made their annual visit on Friday as they helped the city prepare for the fire season by eating dry brush.
When open areas are cleared of shrubbery, a wildfire can be slowed or stopped because the fire will not have fuel.
Grazing sheep have been used for weed abatement in the city’s open space since 2000, and three years ago goats became part of the program.
Just west of Rock Springs Drive on the north side of Chino Avenue, the goats were guided on the steep hill in Rolling Ridge where they were expected to clear 14 acres of brush behind a neighborhood of houses.
“We’re required by fire code to keep an area cleared (of weeds) behind the homes,” said Sean O’Connor, maintenance and operations manager for Chino Hills.
The goats were expected to satisfy that requirement by eating vegetation from where city property begins behind the homes to about 300 feet outward.
O’Connor said the goats are ideal because they can travel on steep ground, in areas that otherwise would require a weed- abatement crew and noisy machines.
He said an added benefit of using the goats to clear brush is that, unlike the sheep, they eat the dense brush and poison oak, which grows wild in the open space.
A fire burned in the Rolling Ridge area two years ago, O’Connor said. No structures were damaged, although the fire came close to homes.
The goats now keep the area clear and save the city nearly $10,000 - the cost of a weed abatement crew for the area.
The goats began their job by clearing a fire break.
Pedro Indacochea, owner of Indacochea Sheep Ranch, contracts goat and sheep grazing at very low cost to the city. He said his 200 goats can clear about an acre a day.
The goats are enclosed in a fence when they are not grazing, and a rancher stays with them day and night in a small trailer on the site.
David Jensen, fire inspector for Chino Valley Independent Fire District, said the goats used for weed abatement are a great asset for reducing the spread of fires.
“What the goats don’t eat they trample down and mulch up,” he said. “Either way it works good because you don’t have the leftover dust.”
Jensen also wants to remind residents that it’s fire-inspection time. Property owners with fewer than five acres of land were required to cut down their weeds, he said.
“Owners with over five acres need a 100-foot fire break around the property,” he said.
Residents who have property considered a fire hazard will be given a notice to clear the area within 10 days, Jensen said.
If the hazardous space doesn’t get cleared in time, it will be costly.
“If not cleared, we send out our contractor,” he said, then the resident will be billed for the cost of the contractor and a $175 administration fee.
“We prefer to have the owner clear it and not us,” Jensen said.
Weed abatement is a proven method, he said. “We have had a couple of fires in Chino Hills where weed abatement has stopped it.”
In its first year of introducing the goats into the weed-abatement program, the city won an American Public Works Association Award.