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Fresno, California

The richest farm county in the country, with the Sierra at its back.

Fresno County grows more by value than almost any county in America, and the city in the middle of it has a river parkway to restore, a canopy it is trying to grow in brutal summers, and the Sierra National Forest an hour east where the Creek fire burned in 2020. Orchard planning, canopy and post fire mapping are the flights that fit.

Talk to Eli All of California

The ground

Fresno and Fresno County and Madera County

Fresno and Clovis sit on the valley floor between the San Joaquin River on the north and the Kings on the south, with almonds, grapes, citrus, stone fruit and dairies in every direction and canals carrying Sierra water through all of it. East the land climbs through oak foothills to the Sierra National Forest, Shaver and Huntington lakes and the Creek fire footprint, then to Kings Canyon and Yosemite. The city's own tree canopy is thin and the summers are the reason.

Who buys mapping here

  • City of Fresno: Parks, After School, Recreation and Community Services, Public Works, the Urban Forestry program, the GIS group; City of Clovis
  • Fresno County and Madera County: Public Works and Planning, Emergency Services
  • The San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust and the San Joaquin River Conservancy
  • Fresno Irrigation District, the Kings River Conservation District and the groundwater agencies of the subbasin
  • Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District
  • Tree Fresno and the canopy programs; California State University, Fresno and its farm
  • The Sierra National Forest, CAL FIRE's Fresno Kings Unit, and the foothill fire safe councils
  • Pacific Gas and Electric; the almond, grape, citrus and dairy operations of the county

Getting there

From Medford

About eight hours from Medford down Interstate 5 and across on 99, or a flight into Fresno Yosemite International. The valley is a trip of its own, Fresno to Bakersfield.

The public lidar

What exists, and what it misses

The valley has federal lidar flown for flood and groundwater work and the foothills were flown after the fire. An orchard block's drainage, a vineyard's slope, a parkway restoration reach or a city's street tree inventory want a current flight at their own resolution, not the valley wide surface.

What we would fly

The lanes that fit Fresno

Three dimensional view of a farm elevation model with fields, tree mounds, and the pond in relief.
Farm Planning
Post harvest assessment map for the Oregon Department of Forestry: downed woody debris volume by decay class in one acre cells, with species of standing trees.
Forestry
Infrared heat map over a lake and forest: heat perimeter, isolated heat points classed by temperature, and 50, 100, and 200 foot mopup buffers.
Wildland Fire
Orthomosaic of a creek corridor through Phoenix, Oregon, clipped to the project area.
Property

Every service

Everything we do, in Fresno

  • Farm planning Start here

    Terrain, drainage low points, slope and sun, canopy, and plan overlays drawn on a current orthomosaic of the whole farm.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Wildfire fuels and CWPP support

    Canopy height, ladder fuels and structure exposure for a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, citywide when the plan needs it.

  • 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.

  • 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.

Nearest work

Fresno County has not seen the aircraft. The applicable Oregon work: a nursery planned on drone LiDAR terrain, a restoration corridor counted in year one, and a watershed of conifers classed by health.

Three dimensional overview of the farm elevation model draped over the landscape.

Farm Planning 2023

A farm plan on real ground

Plant Oregon with Oregon Urban Rural and Community Forestry, a tree nursery in development

Terrain, ponds, tree mounds, and a site plan drawn on a current ortho of the whole farm.

Read the case
Overview of the Bear Creek corridor through Phoenix from the June 2025 LiDAR: the greenway, the creek, and the highway with the young planting in place.

Property 2025

A planting corridor through Phoenix, tree by tree

City of Phoenix

The year one record for 98 trees the city planted where the Almeda fire burned through Phoenix, from drone LiDAR and RGB flown 65 days after planting.

Read the case
Douglas fir crowns colored by health class over the Ashland watershed orthomosaic.

Forestry 2023 to 2024

At risk, declining, dieback, dead

City of Ashland

About 30,000 Douglas fir crowns classed by health across the city's watershed lands, so the city could see the die off and act on it.

Read the case

The record

Every project we have published

Forestry and trees

Rivers and habitat

Wildfire fuels and planning

Night infrared on fires

Terrain and site design

Farm planning

Fresno, the valley trip.

An orchard, a parkway reach, a city canopy count or a foothill fuels unit. Tell us the block or the boundary and when the data is needed.

Talk to Eli

Email info@roguerecon.net or call 808 298 6290.