Rogue Reconnaissance
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Kennewick, Washington

Three rivers, three cities, and the most irrigated ground in the state.

The Tri Cities sit where the Yakima and the Snake meet the Columbia, in the middle of the Columbia Basin Project's irrigated farmland, with vineyards on Red Mountain, the Hanford site to the north and shrub steppe that burns most summers. Farm planning, terrain for a fast growing region and fire on the steppe are the flights here.

Talk to Eli All of Washington

The ground

Kennewick and Benton County and Franklin County

Kennewick and Richland lie on the Columbia's south bank with Pasco across the river, where the Snake comes in from the east and the Yakima from the west. Around them the basin is circle irrigated potatoes, corn, onions and orchards, with Red Mountain's vineyards above Benton City and the Horse Heaven Hills rising to the south. North of Richland the Hanford reach is the last free flowing stretch of the Columbia, with the national monument and the site beyond it. The shrub steppe between the fields burns fast and often.

Who buys mapping here

  • The cities of Kennewick, Richland, Pasco and West Richland: Public Works, Parks, Planning, the GIS groups
  • Benton County and Franklin County: Emergency Management, Public Works, Planning
  • Benton PUD, Franklin PUD and Benton Rural Electric Association
  • Benton Conservation District and Franklin Conservation District; the Kennewick, Columbia and South Columbia Basin irrigation districts
  • Benton County Fire Districts 1 and 4, Pasco Fire, Richland Fire and the Hanford fire department
  • The Hanford site's contractors and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory grounds; the Hanford Reach National Monument
  • Washington State University Tri Cities and Columbia Basin College
  • Vineyards on Red Mountain and the Horse Heaven Hills, orchards, and the row crop operations of the basin

Getting there

From Medford

About seven and a half hours from Medford by road, through Bend and the Columbia Plateau, or a flight to Pasco. The Tri Cities complete an eastern Washington trip with Yakima.

The public lidar

What exists, and what it misses

The basin has state portal and federal lidar over the rivers and the cities, flown for flood and infrastructure work; the farmland and the steppe are thinner. A field's drainage, a vineyard's slope and aspect, a new subdivision's ground or a range fire's footprint each want a current flight at their own scale.

What we would fly

The lanes that fit Kennewick

Three dimensional view of a farm elevation model with fields, tree mounds, and the pond in relief.
Farm Planning
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
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

Every service

Everything we do, in Kennewick

  • Farm planning Start here

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

  • Property and site design Start here

    Design ready contours, tree points and surface models, in the formats and coordinate system the engineer specifies.

  • Night infrared on active fires Start here

    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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Rivers, riparian and habitat

    Species along a river corridor, wetlands and habitat, cold water seeps found with thermal, and baselines for restoration work.

  • Wildfire fuels and CWPP support

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

  • 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 Tri Cities are new territory for the aircraft. The record that applies: a farm planned on drone LiDAR terrain, a campus mapped for engineers, and a fast moving fire flown beside a freeway.

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
Contour plan view over a high school track and field, one foot contours from drone LiDAR.

Property 2023

A school site, ready for the engineers

Pacific 3D Reality Capture, for the Brookings Harbor High School campus

Drone LiDAR terrain and contours over a 37 acre school campus, delivered as plan sheets and CAD ready data for the design team.

Read the case
Night infrared of the Interstate 5 fire before dawn on its first night, heat sources and patches of heat glowing inside the outlined perimeter.

Wildland Fire 2026

Interstate 5 at milepost 57, initial attack beside the freeway

Oregon Department of Forestry

Initial attack beside Interstate 5 near Grants Pass in August 2026. A perimeter map the first evening, then two flights most nights, five nights in all.

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

The Tri Cities, field by field.

A circle, a vineyard, a subdivision site or a fire district's steppe. Send the ground and the week that works and we will plan the basin trip.

Talk to Eli

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