“It was darn smart of us to do that.”
Bring on the goats. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is the repository of presidential records from the administration of Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, and the burial place of the President and First Lady, Nancy Reagan. And this past week, it was saved from the wildfires sweeping the Los Angeles Basin by — wait for it — a herd of goats.
The library is in Simi Valley, Calif., about 64 km (40 miles) northwest of downtown Los Angeles and 24 km (15 miles) west of Chatsworth. The somewhat oddly named Easy Fire broke out early Wednesday morning in the parched hills surrounding Simi Valley and burned through some 1,300 acres by daylight, according to the Ventura County Fire Dept. The Easy Fire, one of several California wildfires burning in dry and windy conditions for the past two weeks, threatened some 6,500 homes and forced numerous school closures before burning toward the Reagan Library, propelled by strong winds.
Interestingly — and by design — a herd of 500 ravenous goats was introduced to the area surrounding the library this past May, with the idea of creating a fire break by munching away at brush that otherwise might have served as kindling to any potential fire. Fire breaks slow the flames in any potential fire and buy firefighters extra time to respond.
Southern California, SOCAL to the locals, has been the site of terrible wildfires for the past three years running, owing to the seasonal Santa Ana winds that sweep down from the parched mountains every October. Due to climate change, some say, the winds have been more capricious, intense and unpredictable in recent years. This season has proved particularly bad — winds topped 160 kph (100 mph) miles an hour in some areas, triple the norm, or whatever passes for normal these days.
That there are fires should come as no surprise: The Los Angeles Basin is essentially a huge bowl of
sand, and the regional population — in an area that has little to no natural water sources — now tops 10 million.
The goats, naturally enough, have become stars. The “caprine contractors,” as BBC dubbed them in a news story Thursday, include Selena Goatmez, Goatzart and the unofficial ringleader, poster boy and public face of SOCAL goat herds everywhere, Vincent van Goat.
The goats work (relatively) cheap. A local company, established last November, supplies the goats and charges around USD 1,000 per acre for grazing brush. The Reagan Presidential Library grounds required around 13 acres of land to be cleared — a bargain, considering the Easy Fire burned through 1,300 acres before firefighters had a chance to tackle the fire head on.
The Getty Museum in Los Angeles was also threatened by fire this past week; in that case, valuable scrub-clearing work was carried out by museum staff. The company that supplies the goats is already talking about having to double their herd, just to meet demand.
The bigger picture tells a valuable tale. Using goats to clear unwanted brush is a natural way to fight nature’s fires, though the California experience shows that most of these fires were started by human encroachment, mainly downed power lines in high winds that flame out and spark the underbrush, as opposed to dry lightning, which is responsible for most of the wildfires north of California, on the BC West Coast, for example, and in the coastal mountains that separate the Pacific region from the Rocky Mountains further inland.
The goats proved invaluable, as it turned out. The Ronald Reagan Library grounds cover some 700 acres. At its height, the Easy Fire came within 27 metres (30 yards) of the complex. If not for the goats, there’s no telling what might have happened.
@Skeeze-Pixabay