Overview:
California, which faces intense wildfires every year, has worked to prevent wildfires in different ways, including controlled burns— for SCE, though, fire fighting goats are the new frontier.
About 20 minutes north of Shaver Lake, power lines buzz with 220 kilowatts of energy above a burn scar littered with burnt trees, thorny shrubs — and 100 firefighting goats.
Southern California Edison, who has right-of-way over the area under the power lines, began a pilot program in fall of 2021 to test out goats as a vegetation management and fire prevention tool. Now, they’re looking to expand.
“…Over the past couple of years here we’ve found [the grazing program] to be very effective in managing our fuel loading brush species under our rights-of-way here,” said Sarah Hendrix, a Senior Utility Arborist for SCE.
“The goats are behind a solar-powered electric fence,” said Hendrix. “That keeps the goats safely within the right-of-way, and that fence is put up at the right-of-way boundary– so they’re only grazing where they need to graze, right under the power lines.”
The firefighting goats are part of a contract with Chasin Goat Grazing, owned by Chase Cianfichi and his wife, Emma Cianfichi. There are currently 100 goats at the site near Shaver Lake, though over the last four years there have been as many as 400 goats at a time under the power lines, said Cianfichi.
“We run about 2,000 goats and sheep,” said Cianfichi. The Santa Rosa-based grazing company became involved with SCE during Cianfichi’s time at Fresno State.
The program, started in 2021, followed the Creek Fire which burned over 379,000 acres. California, which faces intense wildfires every year, has worked to prevent wildfires in different ways, including controlled burns— for SCE, though, fire fighting goats are the new frontier.
