The eucalyptus trees here in California are a terrible fire hazard. They act like torches/explosives during wildfires.
Just search on
eucalyptus fire
here at THG and you'll find a couple of informative threads.
The Montecito (Santa Barbara County) fire last year was an excellent/terrible example of eucalyptus making a wildfire so much worse than it would otherwise have been.
The Oakland Firestorm (October 20 and 21, 1991) was fueled largely by eucalyptus. Over 3,100 homes in Oakland and Berkeley were burnt to the ground that weekend. The fire was so hot, large, everything else that it created its own weather and wind. Wiki has an article on "Oakland firestorm." There may be a paragraph on eucalyptus.
There aren't enough koalas to eat the eucalyptus in California, and our climates aren't hospitable to koalas, anyway.

I'd much rather be able to keep chickens--koalas are reputed to be mean little things--but El Cerrito doesn't allow it.

My dogs could do without the fleas *or* ticks. Our tick season is mercifully short, but we do have one....coming soon.
Note: The area of California where the OP lives is not a large commercial potato-growing region. Almost every bag of potatoes I see in my produce store is from--yep--Idaho. Some are from Washington, and a few occasionally from Oregon. The only California potatoes I ever see are the specialty ones, grown on small farms: fingerlings, reds, blues. I see these spuds at farmers' markets, but since I know where the vendors are from I can say with certainty that none of them are from the central coast of California. *whew*
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9