Rogue Reconnaissance
Contact

Ukiah, California

Where we flew ten mine sites under the chaparral.

In September 2025 we flew drone LiDAR over 779.4 acres of abandoned mine sites on Bureau of Land Management ground managed from the Ukiah Field Office, for Bat Conservation International, and delivered bare earth at a quarter metre checked against the public lidar to 0.320 m. Mendocino County is the one California county with a published case on this site.

Talk to Eli All of California

The ground

Ukiah and Mendocino County and Lake County

Ukiah sits in the Russian River valley between the coast ranges, with Lake Mendocino above town, vineyards and pear orchards on the valley floor, and oak, chaparral and Douglas fir on every slope. West over the ridge is Anderson Valley, the redwood coast and Jackson Demonstration State Forest; east is Clear Lake and the Mendocino National Forest, where the 2018 Mendocino Complex and the 2020 August Complex were each the largest fire in the state's history when they burned. The mine sites we mapped are scattered through this country.

Who buys mapping here

  • The BLM Ukiah Field Office and the Mendocino National Forest
  • Bat Conservation International and the other conservation groups working the abandoned mines and caves
  • City of Ukiah: Public Works, the Electric utility, Parks; Willits, Fort Bragg, Lakeport and Clearlake
  • Mendocino County and Lake County: Planning, Public Works, Emergency Services, the county GIS
  • Mendocino County Resource Conservation District and the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council; Ukiah Valley Fire Authority and CAL FIRE's Mendocino Unit
  • The Pomo tribal governments of the Ukiah valley and Clear Lake and their environmental programs
  • Jackson Demonstration State Forest, the Russian River and Eel River watershed groups, the Mendocino Land Trust
  • Vineyards, pear orchards, cannabis farms and the timber owners of the coast ranges
  • Pacific Gas and Electric's corridors through the county

Getting there

From Medford

About five hours from Medford, down Interstate 5 and across on Highway 20 or down 101 through the redwoods. We stage in Ukiah for a week at a time and reach the coast, the Mendocino National Forest and Lake County from it.

The public lidar

What exists, and what it misses

We know the public lidar here better than most: we checked our bare earth against it on 242 points across eight sites. It is good terrain data where it exists and it was flown before the complexes burned. Under dense chaparral and on the small features a mine lands inventory or a habitat inventory of bats and springs needs, a dense drone flight sees what the older, sparser data could not.

What we would fly

The lanes that fit Ukiah

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
Orthomosaic of a creek corridor through Phoenix, Oregon, clipped to the project area.
Property
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
Three dimensional view of a farm elevation model with fields, tree mounds, and the pond in relief.
Farm Planning

Every service

Everything we do, in Ukiah

  • 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.

  • Drone LiDAR Start here

    Bare earth under the canopy, contours, surface and canopy height models, classified point clouds and line corridors, PPK controlled and checked.

  • 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.

  • GIS consulting and data

    Hosted data, web maps and dashboards, Survey123 field apps, scripted reporting, and the cleanup of the data you already have.

  • Tree inventory and canopy

    Every crown in a city, a park system or a campus, with height, species and health, checked against trees on the ground.

  • 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.

Nearest work

The mine sites themselves, a river corridor classified by species, and a watershed's conifers classed by health.

Shaded relief of Harley Gulch from the drone LiDAR bare earth model, canyons and old workings in relief.

Property 2025

Ten abandoned mines, bare earth under the chaparral

Bat Conservation International, on Bureau of Land Management land, Ukiah Field Office

Bare earth, surface, and canopy height models over 779.4 acres of abandoned mine sites under steep chaparral, checked against the public LiDAR at 0.320 m RMSE.

Read the case
Riparian canopy polygons drawn as coloured outlines by dominant species over a true colour orthomosaic of a river corridor.

Forestry 2025

Riparian species and cold seeps on the Scott River

Cascade Stream Solutions, with a botanist leading field identification. We flew it as their subcontractor and reported to them.

Fourteen riparian species classified across 423 acres of river corridor, with thermal mapping that pointed to groundwater fed cold seeps.

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

Mendocino and Lake counties, from the mine sites outward.

More sites for the inventory, a habitat question, a fuels planning area or a parcel in the hills. Send the ground and we will be back in Ukiah.

Talk to Eli

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