California

GIS consulting, drone LiDAR and mapping across California.

River corridors, mine sites, timber, and fire. We have flown Siskiyou, Shasta, and Mendocino counties, and the same aircraft and sensors go anywhere in the state.

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What we fly in California

The river, the ridge, the mine site, and the fire

Our base sits an hour from the state line. A California job gets the same flight and the same products as the Oregon work on this site: drone LiDAR for the ground and the trees, multispectral for what is alive and what is not, thermal for water and for fire, and a current orthomosaic to draw on. Products come back in California State Plane or UTM, NAVD88, in the formats the agency, the forester, or the engineer already uses.

Riparian species mapping and thermal cold water mapping for restoration partners and fisheries groups
Drone LiDAR under the canopy for habitat, mine site, and watershed work on federal, state, and tribal land
Forest health tree by tree: Douglas fir, oak, and ash, with the accuracy figures reported
Night infrared perimeter and heat products on wildland fire, in the schema every incident GISS already uses
Design ready terrain and canopy data for architects, engineers, and landowners

Wildland fire

The same night package, either side of the line

Oregon's fire season is California's fire season. On an active incident we fly infrared after dark and hand the incident management team the heat perimeter, intense and scattered heat, isolated heat points by intensity, and the mopup buffers, as a shapefile, a geodatabase, a KMZ, and an 11 by 17 map, before the morning briefing. The products follow the NIFS schema and carry the IRWIN identifier, so a California GISS drops them straight into the incident map.

We hold FAA Certificates of Authorization, carry the NWCG red card and the USFS Administratively Determined qualifications, and have flown as an Oregon Department of Forestry Call When Needed resource since 2019. A California agency or contractor can order the same resource.

Infrared map sheet for Woodrat Mountain on a topographic base: heat perimeter, intense and scattered heat, isolated heat sources, and the launch and recovery point.

Where the work is

Northern California, region by region

Siskiyou County and the Klamath

Three hours from Medford. Riparian species and thermal mapping on the Scott River, where we classed fourteen species across 423 acres and mapped the cold water the fish depend on. Timber, restoration, and fire on both sides of the state line.

Shasta County and Redding

Tree inventory and terrain for a parcel with a licensed surveyor partner, delivered as classified LiDAR, orthomosaic, and CAD vegetation. Site design ground for architects and engineers around Redding, and forest health on the timber lands north of the lake.

Mendocino County and the North Coast

Drone LiDAR over ten abandoned mine sites for Bat Conservation International on BLM Ukiah Field Office land, 779 acres of steep chaparral, bare earth and canopy height for habitat work. Redwood and Douglas fir stands, watershed councils, and the coast from Ukiah to Eureka.

Sacramento Valley and the foothills

Orchards, row crop ground, and levee districts with drainage to plan; foothill timber and fuels work for counties and fire safe councils; design ready terrain for the growing towns from Chico to Sacramento.

What we map

Four lanes, in California

Infrared heat map over a lake and forest: heat perimeter, isolated heat points classed by temperature, and 50, 100, and 200 foot mopup buffers.

Every service

Everything we do, in California

Wildfire fuels and CWPP support Start here
Canopy height, ladder fuels and structure exposure for a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, citywide when the plan needs it.
Rivers, riparian and habitat Start here
Species along a river corridor, wetlands and habitat, cold water seeps found with thermal, and baselines for restoration work.
Tree inventory and canopy Start here
Every crown in a city, a park system or a campus, with height, species and health, checked against trees on the ground.
GIS consulting and data
Hosted data, web maps and dashboards, Survey123 field apps, scripted reporting, and the cleanup of the data you already have.
Drone LiDAR
Bare earth under the canopy, contours, surface and canopy height models, classified point clouds and line corridors, PPK controlled and checked.
Forestry
Stand inventory, species and health classes, downed woody debris counted and measured from the air, post harvest monitoring.
Night infrared on active fires
Heat perimeters and hotspots in the incident team’s hands before the morning briefing. The pipeline that builds the package runs at the UAS Wildland Fire Collaborative, the nonprofit we founded.
Farm planning
Terrain, drainage low points, slope and sun, canopy, and plan overlays drawn on a current orthomosaic of the whole farm.
Property and site design
Design ready contours, tree points and surface models, in the formats and coordinate system the engineer specifies.
Multispectral imaging
Five calibrated bands, vegetation indices, and species and health classification with its accuracy reported.
Thermal infrared
A calibrated temperature in every pixel, flown as a mapping mission: fire heat classified in degrees, prescribed fire mortality, cold water seeps.
Federal and agency work
Fire infrared, LiDAR on abandoned mine lands and forest data for federal land managers. Registered in SAM.gov.

The record

Every project we have published

Terrain and site design

A school site, ready for the engineers Pacific 3D Reality Capture 2023
Colver Road Park, the LiDAR pilot Rogue Reconnaissance pilot project 2022 to 2023

Farm planning

A farm plan on real ground Plant Oregon with Oregon Urban Rural and Community Forestry 2023

Let's talk about your California project.

Tell us the ground, the county, and the season. We will answer with what we would fly, what comes back, and when.