Clearing of obstacle layer in the layered_costmap

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Hi all,

I have a layered_costmap with static_layer, obstacle_layer (for Lidar and Kinect) and inflation_layer and there are situations when I need to clear out the obstacle_layers manually in the code. I am working on full coverage and I want to clear out the obstacle layer when the robot reaches the goal and starts going to the next goal so that it can cover more area. What is the best way to clear out the entire obstacle layer and remove all obstacles (which are not in the static_map) manually in the code (maybe in move_base.cpp) ? I don't want to make any changes to the static_layer, just want to clear the obstacle_layer.

Update 1 :
I tried using /move_base/clearCostmapsService for which I added a piece of code in move_base.cpp itself (for now) so that I can test it by giving goals from RVIZ. I added the code in the executeCb function of move_base.cpp which gets called when a goal is received. Here is the code snippet :

void MoveBase::executeCb(const move_base_msgs::MoveBaseGoalConstPtr& move_base_goal)
      {
        if(!isQuaternionValid(move_base_goal->target_pose.pose.orientation)){
          as_->setAborted(move_base_msgs::MoveBaseResult(), "Aborting on goal because it was sent with an invalid quaternion");
          return;
        }


       ///// Added on 01/13/2016
       boost::unique_lock<boost::mutex> lock1(planner_mutex_);
       runPlanner_ = false;

      std_srvs::Empty srv;
      if(clear_costmaps_client.call(srv))
           ROS_INFO("I got the goal and the costmap layers are reset!!!!!");  // It prints this and continues but the costmap is not reset properly, it takes some time after this for the costmap to properly reset

      lock1.unlock();
      /////

        geometry_msgs::PoseStamped goal = goalToGlobalFrame(move_base_goal->target_pose);

        //we have a goal so start the planner
        boost::unique_lock<boost::mutex> lock(planner_mutex_);
        planner_goal_ = goal;
        runPlanner_ = true;
        planner_cond_.notify_one();
        lock.unlock();


    current_goal_pub_.publish(goal);
    std::vector<geometry_msgs::PoseStamped> global_plan;

Using the clearCostmapsService, the map is successfully cleared but the problem is that path planning is done before the map can filled with the static_layer (at this time, the map is basically empty and contains no obstacles) so the path is planned through the obstacles in the static_layer which I don't want. I want the costmap should be cleared and then filled again with static_layer and sensor_data and then path planning should be done. Does anyone have any idea what can be the issue in calling clearCostmapService shown in the code snippet above?

Thanks in advance.
Naman