Aerial view of Moscow, Idaho at dusk — town lights beneath an ember horizon
Moscow, Idaho
North Idaho
Labs

Work the riskiest miles first.

Trees grow into lines and fall onto them. Trim cycles still walk the corridor on a schedule. We turn imagery into a ranked work list for Inland Northwest co-op feeders so your crews hit the miles that matter most.

Talk about a feeder pilot contact@northidaholabs.com
The problem

The schedule and the hazard are not the same map.

On wooded feeders, vegetation into the wire and hazard trees outside the right-of-way cause a lot of blinks and outages. Most programs still clear miles on a fixed multi-year cycle. The hazard does not wait for its turn.

The cycle walks the feeder evenly. The hazard clumps — and the next scheduled mile lands between the clumps.
Two rows along the same feeder. The calendar row marks years one through seven at even spacing. The hazard row shows risk clustered on a few uneven spans, and the calendar's next stop lands between them.
  • Trees into the line

    Growth into the conductors, or trees and limbs outside the ROW that can strike a span.

    Clearance held on Span A. Grow-in contacts the wire on Span B. Outside the ROW, a hazard tree can still fall in.
  • Money on the wrong miles

    The trim budget is set by the calendar, not the risk. A cycle that runs six or seven years covers a lot of ground fine, but it spends the same crew hours on quiet spans while the worst miles wait their turn.

    Crew hours march evenly by year. Risk does not — so this year’s dollars land on a quiet mile while hotter spans wait.
  • Slow cleanup after storms

    After wind, ice, or fire, you need a clear picture of which spans moved or failed before you send trucks.

    Right after the storm the corridor is all unknowns. A closer look turns spans into change flags and a ranked crew list.

The same ranked view helps when you are deciding where to harden first for wildfire season.

How we work

Most miles from the vehicle. The rest from the air.

Satellite shows where to look. Then we spend cheap miles first: a camera on the vehicle covers everything you can drive. The drone only flies the spans the vehicle cannot reach. Every mile earns its place on the list before you spend a crew day on it.

01

Wide pass

Satellite and public aerial imagery, including NAIP, rank the territory so we are not guessing which feeders deserve a closer look.

02

Road miles

For the drivable corridor, we drive it. Road-level capture confirms lean, encroachment, and storm damage at a pace a vehicle can keep — most of the feeder, without burning flight time.

03

Off-road miles

Where the wire leaves the road, a licensed drone flight fills the gap. You get one GIS-ready work list: highest-risk miles first, with a view for each span your people can check.

The pilot

Feeder Risk Pilot

Usually $15,000–$45,000 Fixed fee by line miles · about 50–150 miles · four to eight weeks
  • Ranked work list (CSV and GeoJSON)
  • Map package for the web or for QGIS / Arc
  • Short methods note and a 90-minute review workshop
  • Optional help with grant language for wildfire or resiliency applications

From you: priority feeders and a centerline export. If that is not ready, we can start from public NAIP under an NDA.

Jim Coleman · Moscow, Idaho — remote sensing, GIS, and field capture for Inland Northwest co-ops.

Contact

Ready to talk about one feeder?

contact@northidaholabs.com