Wildfire risk left this SLO County area in ‘extreme peril.’ Now there’s a plan to help
The Salinas River snakes right through the middle of Paso Robles, its banks surrounded by dense riparian plants that provide a natural habitat corridor in the city.
Perhaps in decades past, the river would always run year-round — water rushing along the sand would moisten the soil and get sucked into the plant life.
In recent years, however, “the river just doesn’t flow as much as it used to,” said Jay Enns, a battalion chief with the Paso Robles Fire Department. “So some of the riparian vegetation that was here years ago is drying up and it’s transitioning to a different type of vegetation.”
Riparian vegetation doesn’t just provide key habitat for animals. When it is fed by a consistent water source, it can act as a fire deterrent: Flames find it hard to battle plants that are moist and dense.
The gradual drying out of the Salinas Riverbed has caused the area to become a kindling box and created “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property” in Paso Robles, according to a 2019 City Council report.
So, the city in 2019 began putting emergency plans together and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to give the city a fighting chance when the inevitable fires would start in the riverbed.
Not even a year later, the 15-acre River Fire jumped from the banks of the Salinas into a nearby neighborhood and destroyed two homes off Almond Street and Creston Road.
At the time, the city was working to reduce vegetation along 86 acres of the Salinas Riverbed — but the River Fire showed officials it wasn’t enough to abate fire risk in the area.
After about two years of planning work with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the city of Paso Robles finally received a Lake and Streambed Alteration Agreement (LSAA).
“The LSAA is the final piece of the puzzle in the regulatory approval process for the city of Paso Robles to manage the vegetation in the Salinas River and reduce the wildfire risk to the community,” a news release by the city about the agreement said.
The agreement allows the city to mitigate fire risk on 430 acres of the Salinas Riverbed.
Currently, the city is contracting The Goat Girls to graze livestock on about 100 acres within the Salinas River corridor. Additional work by hand crews to clean up anything the goats and sheep can’t eat — like downed or dead trees — is also authorized under the agreement, according to Enns, who is helping to supervise the work.
It’ll take the 850 goats and sheep about six weeks (they started in mid-April) to graze down the 100 acres of thick vegetation. This is a big project for the animals, who had previously grazed about 15 to 20 acres in 2020, then 70 acres in 2021, according to Goat Girls owner Beth Reynolds.
To best do their job, all of the goats are kept in pens of about one to 1.5 acres, Reynolds said
“It’s just a way of managing the grazing: Doing it in smaller sections and moving them more often gives the best control over how they graze and minimizes some of the impacts of grazing,” she said. “We move them every 12 to 24 hours. With that kind of regimen they’re grazing and they’re also trampling. If we do a really big area, then it’s not as uniform and they don’t knock down as much.”
To reduce the risk of a potentially devastating fire, grazing is key — goats and sheep complement each other well by eating pretty much everything in their path — but so is trampling and the goats’ tendencies to rub up against trees and knock down the lower branches.
Together, the livestock reduces the height of the flames that may come through, therefore creating more manageable conditions for firefighters.
“I’m amazed at what they eat, and I’ve done this for 20 years,” Reynolds said with a laugh. “I’ll build a fence through what seems like a jungle ... I’m cutting grass and vines and branches trying to get my fence line through. Then within three hours of leaving them there and it’s completely open.”
Using livestock to graze down the fire fuels is more environmentally conscious than the other options out there. Bringing in lawnmowers, vegetation masticators, weed whackers or other machinery is expensive and runs the risk of fuel spills and creates greenhouse gas emissions.
The city of Paso Robles is required, as part of the LSAA, to submit an annual report to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on the work done that year. Before the work starts each year, the city will have to submit a work plan.
Each year the work can vary, Enns explained, because where the vegetation management may be needed could vary each year.
Enns said he expects the work to begin in the early spring and end before the heat of the summer kicks in, avoiding the hardest work during the hottest days when the risk of wildfires increases.
Residents and visitors will likely see goats on the hills around the Salinas River every year, as this is not the kind of work that is “one and done,” Enns said. And the work must be done annually, he added, to ensure the community is kept safe.
“We’re not just here for fire suppression, we’re an all-hazard agency,” he said. “When we have an incident in the riverbed that takes all of our resources, then the community is without a fire (department) response for medicals and other issues. And so if we can reduce the time and number of resources committed to these types of incidents in the riverbed, then we make them available to the community and other surrounding communities that rely on Paso Robles resources.”
This story was originally published May 24, 2022 at 9:55 AM.
