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Paso Robles expands riverbed grazing, permits and grants to reduce Salinas River fires
Summary
City officials described a multi‑year vegetation management program that relies on targeted goat grazing, mechanized clearing and new regulatory permits; officials said the measures have coincided with a sharp drop in riverbed fires and are funded largely by grants and partnerships.
Fire Chief Jay Ines told the Paso Robles City Council on Oct. 7 that the city’s Salinas River Corridor had become “heavily overgrown with, decadent dense vegetation making it prone to, intense fire behavior,” and that the city launched a vegetation management program to reduce that risk.
The initiative combines targeted goat grazing, mechanized equipment and hand crews. “Targeted grazing has become the primary method for our annual maintenance of the fire breaks,” Jay Ines said, adding that grazing accounted for roughly 84–85 acres this year while mechanized equipment treated about 32 acres. Ines said the city piloted goat grazing on 15 acres, found it “very successful,” and scaled it up.
City staff told the council the program required years of regulatory work…
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