Spokane Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer is looking to hire scores of new firefighters.
They’ll each stand some 20 inches tall and have four legs capped by cloven hooves.
Schaeffer calls them biological masticators, herbivores or browsers. But most people probably know them as goats.
Schaeffer and Councilwoman Lori Kinnear are proposing that the city of Spokane pilot a program to bring trips of goats into the city’s overgrown areas to chow down – all with the hope of reducing wildfire risk.
“We thought it would be a pretty good opportunity to use, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but goats to reduce fuel,” Schaeffer said. “I know more now about goats and fuel reduction than I ever could have imagined.”
The proposal, befitting of a city where a trash-inhaling iron goat is cemented in its most iconic park, was reviewed by the city’s Public Safety and Community Health Committee on Jan. 6.