Hillsboro, Oregon
The county where the ash borer arrived first.
Emerald ash borer was found on the West Coast for the first time in Forest Grove in 2022, a few miles from Hillsboro, and Washington County has been counting and treating ash ever since. The Tualatin Valley around it is nurseries, berries, wetlands and fast growing cities, all of which buy mapping.
The ground
Hillsboro and Washington County
Hillsboro sits in the Tualatin Valley between the Coast Range and the West Hills, with the Tualatin River looping along its south side through Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve. West toward Forest Grove and Cornelius the valley is nurseries, berry fields, hazelnuts and vineyards on the hills; north and west it climbs into Coast Range timber. The city itself has grown around the technology plants and keeps parks, greenways and a tree canopy it reports on.
Who buys mapping here
- City of Hillsboro: Parks and Recreation, Public Works, the GIS group; Forest Grove and Cornelius next door
- Washington County: Land Use and Transportation, Emergency Management, the county GIS
- Clean Water Services and the Tualatin River Watershed Council
- Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District, the county funder of ash borer response
- Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue and Forest Grove Fire and Rescue
- Portland General Electric and the West Valley lines
- Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve, Fernhill, and the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge downstream
- Nurseries, berry growers and the vineyards of the Tualatin Hills
Getting there
From Medford
About four and a half hours from Medford, or an hour's flight to Portland and a short drive west. Hillsboro, Beaverton and Forest Grove are one trip.
The public lidar
What exists, and what it misses
Washington County is covered by the metro area's public lidar, flown by the state consortium more than once, and the county and Clean Water Services use it hard for floodplain and stormwater work. For the ash question and for canopy reporting it needs a current leaf on flight with species and health on every crown; for a nursery or a farm it needs this winter's drainage, not the decade's.
What we would fly
The lanes that fit Hillsboro
Nearest work
No Washington County job yet. The nearest proof is the Eugene ash inventory, a farm plan on drone LiDAR terrain, and a river corridor classified by species.
Finding every Oregon ash before the borer does
City of Eugene, Parks and Open Space
12,632 crowns classified across 390 acres of riparian canopy. 5,261 of them Oregon ash.
Read the case
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
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 caseThe record
Every project we have published
Forestry and trees
- Downed woody debris, measured from the air
- Finding every Oregon ash before the borer does
- At risk, declining, dieback, dead
- Post harvest monitoring for ODF
- A planting corridor through Phoenix, tree by tree
Rivers and habitat
- Riparian species and cold seeps on the Scott River
- Ten abandoned mines, bare earth under the chaparral
Wildfire fuels and planning
Night infrared on fires
- Night infrared on ODF incidents since 2019
- East Evans Creek, a season inside one fire
- Fielder Mountain, eleven nights as the heat went out
- Woodrat Mountain, from initial attack to the last check
- Interstate 5 at milepost 57, initial attack beside the freeway
- Tyee Ridge Complex
Terrain and site design
Farm planning
Hillsboro and the Tualatin Valley, on the next trip north.
An ash inventory before the borer spreads further, canopy numbers for a plan, or a nursery's drainage. Send the boundary and the season.
Email info@roguerecon.net or call 808 298 6290.