In summer 2012, we reported on the East Bay Regional Park District’s plan for a prescribed burn at Redwood Regional Park. The author of that feature, Wendy Tokuda, went out just before Thanksgiving to watch the burn. Here’s her report:
The prescribed burn at Redwood Regional Park in Oakland happened on November 12, although not exactly as planned.
Earlier, the district sent in goats to reduce weeds. They did too good a job by eating so much fuel. “The goats limited what they were able to accomplish,” says Assistant Fire Chief John Swanson. Firefighters were only able to burn about a third of intended area.
Overall, the goats and the burn successfully reduced fuels and fire danger, but, Swanson says, “as for the ecological benefits they didn’t get quite what they were looking for.” He says the district will go back next year and do more burning.
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