BART has officially made an addition to its firefighting team. The organization recently welcomed the switch from goats to sheep by sending the animals off on a journey around the Bay Area to simultaneously satisfy their bellies and mitigate fire risks on BART property.

This switch, made in collaboration with a contractor based in the Central Valley, has been made just in time for the fire season. According to BART spokesperson Chris Filippi, it is especially important to mitigate these apparent fire risks as the fire season has been expanding in Northern California.

“I should say in terms of timing, too, we really want to get this work done now,” Filippi said. “We know it’s going to get hotter as summer moves on and we really get into the depths of fire season and we know fire season has been expanding … so the sooner we can get this done, the better, which is why we’re doing it now.”

The emergence of green vegetation from the winter rain in California has been a main area of concern for BART, according to Filippi. Due to the rising temperatures, these plants have dried up and are a potential fire hazard.

Due to the abundance of fine grass, BART has altered tactics to properly control the risk of wildfires. The sheep are here to address, or more specifically, consume the changed landscape.

“We’ve used goats for the past few years, and they’ve been very helpful when it comes to the woody kind of vegetation, branches, that sort of thing,” Filippi said. “Our concern now is we need help with more of the grassy area, the fine grass, and the sheep are very adept at eating through that grass.”

According to living systems land manager Jan Kennedy, sheep are “aggressive eaters” and can therefore contribute to eliminating the excessive amount of fine grass that poses a fire hazard.

Kennedy also explained how the sheep’s behavior varies from that of goats.

“They’re different temperaments. They’re easier to move,” Kennedy said. “They flock better together than goats do. They’re not quite as flighty as goats.”

The presence of the sheep has been a welcome development. Not only is it more cost effective, reduces the need for machinery and is more environmentally friendly, but the route the sheep have been grazing has also been easy to oversee, according to Filippi. Because it is all on BART property, no approval is needed from Alameda County or the other cities to allow the sheep to amble around.

BART plans to make year-to-year decisions to determine whether sheep or goats will participate in firefighting efforts based on the kind of vegetation on the property. However, sheep will inhabit the BART land for at least the next few months, and riders may be able to catch a glance at them.

“Right now they’ve been working near the Walnut Creek Station,” Filippi said. “So riders in that area should keep an eye out, they might see the herd.