This city in Colorado is using grazing cattle to help prevent wildfires

The city of Boulder is expanding its targeted cattle grazing program as part of a wildfire protection plan, officials say, aiming to reduce flammable vegetation and slow potential wildfire spread.

Cattle will graze on city-managed open space west of the Dakota Ridge neighborhood, between Lee Hill Drive and 10th Street, through Oct. 6, according to city officials. Temporary electric fencing will confine the herd. Visitors are being asked to stay clear of fencing and cattle and to keep pets under control in the area.

"We are excited to partner again with our local cowboys and cattle for this program," said Paul Dennison, the city's wildland fire senior program manager. "Observations and monitoring following the 2022 NCAR Fire indicated that targeted cattle grazing and other city-led mitigation work, including forest thinning, helped slow the fire's spread and reduce its intensity."

City officials say the effort builds on years of grazing in other parts of Boulder. For more than a decade, grazing on Shanahan Ridge in south Boulder has helped reduce invasive weeds and lower grass-fuel loads -- a cost-effective approach to wildfire risk mitigation.

"Cattle grazing is one of many city efforts identified in the Community Wildfire Protection Plan to remove hazardous fuels and reduce wildfire risks on both public and private lands," said Boulder City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde.

"The work the city is doing is most successful when it happens alongside wildfire resilience work that members of our community also complete, like home hardening and creating defensible space."

Using cattle to graze fire-prone areas isn't new, nor limited to Boulder County, which saw around 1,000 homes destroyed by the Marshall Fire in 2021.

Ranchers and fire officials in Douglas County have also been using cattle to graze land, removing fire fuels for years. One Boulder County-based company, Goat Bros, uses its herd of 300 goats to graze lands across the state for the same purpose.

Goats are also used in the Sacramento area and, along with sheep, in the Bay Area, in an effort to prevent the spread of wildfires in fire-prone California.

One study in the journal Ecology and Society found that current grazing practices reduced the risk of wildfire spread by 45% in the entire area of California that the study focused on. In higher-risk areas, the reduction was closer to 90%, the study's authors found.