The University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) will be conducting a study to estimate how much fuel livestock consume across California, and whether grazing decreases wildfire speed and intensity.
“Livestock grazing is the most widespread (and often the only feasible) management practice to reduce fire hazard from herbaceous fuels in California rangelands,” UCCE said in a released statement.
“Despite that, many public land management agencies do not allow livestock grazing on their lands.”
UCCE will use rangeland cattle movements from state brand inspection data, USDA Agricultural Census data, and County Crop Reports to estimate tons of forage consumed by livestock.
The datasets will be used to determine if and how grazing influences how wildfire spreads.
Results from the study will be available this summer, and questions can be sent to drorao@ucanr.edu. The study is funded by the California Cattle Council.
