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“Maintaining the vegetation eliminates the use of herbicides, and that’s very important for us,” said Rocio Cruces, a co-founder of the Buena Cabra project. “It’s an ecological way of preventing fires without using deadly chemicals.”
Heat waves and a punishing drought in the region fueled February fires that killed at least 23 people, injured at least 979 and destroyed more than a million acres.
Intense temperatures during the South American summer, when temperatures reached over 100 degrees, hindered efforts to contain the fires.
“Weather conditions have made it very difficult to put out [the fires] that are spreading, and the emergency is getting worse,” Chilean Interior Minister Carolina Tohá told reporters in February.
Cruces, a former science teacher at the University of Concepción, launched Buena Cabra (“Good Goat”) in 2017 as her land was threatened by flames. She left her teaching position last year and now dedicates her time to maintaining the goats.
Her herd has since grown 16 to 150. She credits the animals with saving her property when the deadly flames broke out in February. “The park was surrounded by fires, but it ended up being the only green spot left,” she said.
Goats are increasingly popular partners for safeguarding land from fire. Private firms move herds throughout the U.S. Pacific Northwest. California has deployed them since 2014. Ireland, Spain and Portugal have used goats for years.
The goats must contend with other fire prevention strategies, including mechanical thinning, in which smaller trees are removed from a dense forest to reduce the spread of flames, and prescribed burning, which introduces controlled fires in grass and shrub lands. But mechanical thinning can be hard on vegetation, and prescribed fires introduce smoke and fears of the flames running out of control.
Goat herds are only a small-scale prevention technique, according to Crystal Raymond, a climate adaptation specialist at the University of Washington. She has used the animals to control the vegetation on her own forest property.
“It’s pretty localized treatment where you’re protecting high-value resources or a house or a structure,” Raymond said. “They’re really creating a fire line barrier. You have a very strategic place that you’d be putting the goats to do the work. It’s hard to cover a lot of area that way.”
One clear benefit of deploying the goats: Children love them.
“It’s an interesting education tool,” Raymond said. “It’s a great opportunity to have a conversation and talk about [fire prevention].”
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