tree eating goats
© Perry McKenna/Getty Images
These animals are helping dispose of holiday trees after the lights come down.

In the drought-stricken West, the smallest spark—a cigarette butt, an ember from a campfire—can kick up a wildfire. And with people dumping browning Christmas trees after the holidays, the combination can spell trouble.

If you bought your Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, it's a month out from the lot, and it's been even longer since it was cut down, drying out more and more day by day. And when those pine needles die, they become excellent tinder. A tree that catches on fire can crackle into a ball of flames in seconds.

In Reno, Nev., Vince Thomas has a solution to the potentially fiery problem of improperly disposed-of trees: goats. Thomas, who owns a brush-clearing company called Goat Grazers, is employing his herd of 40 to pick pines clean of needles, stripping them of their most potent fuel. Thomas and the goats are starting the new program Friday, in partnership with the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District.

"A lot of people dump it out on the desert and that's really a problem, because people think it's a natural thing and it will decompose," said J Merriman, who has volunteered chipping Christmas trees into mulch for decades, in an interview with The Associated Press.
"But because we're out in the desert, they don't decompose; it will just get drier and drier, and it really becomes a serious fire hazard."
Between 2007 and 2011, fire departments respond to an average of 230 fires caused by Christmas trees, according to the National Fire Protection Association.

The addition of pine needles to Thomas' goats diet is good for the animals too. He tells the AP that the foliage is high in vitamin C and acts as a dewormer too.

If you don't live in the Reno area, getting rid of your tree may not be quite as novel of an experience, but your city likely has a curbside pickup program or other means of disposal.