01
Wide pass
Satellite and public aerial imagery, including NAIP, rank the territory so we are not guessing which feeders deserve a closer look.
Desk Rank and the Full Feeder Risk Pilot are two fixed-fee starts from North Idaho Labs: a GIS ranked list from public imagery, or wide, vehicle, and selective drone capture on corridors that only get checked on a fixed schedule. See the rest of the lab’s work →
Our co-op work · Desk Rank and Full Pilot
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.
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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.
Desk Rank stops at the wide pass: public and satellite imagery, including NAIP, into a GIS ranked list, with no field capture. The Full Feeder Risk Pilot continues from there. A camera on the vehicle covers the miles 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.
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
Two ways to start
Desk Rank
Usually $8,000–$18,000 · about 50–150 line miles · two to four weeks
Public and satellite imagery (including NAIP) turned into a GIS-ready ranked work list. No field capture — just the desk analysis that tells you where to look first.
- Ranked work list (CSV and GeoJSON)
- Map package for the web or for QGIS / Arc
- Short methods note and a 90-minute review workshop
Ranked work list (CSV and GeoJSON)
Map package for the web or for QGIS / Arc
Short methods note and a 90-minute review workshopFull capture
Full Feeder Risk Pilot
Usually $25,000–$55,000
Fixed fee by line miles · about 50–120 line miles · five to eight weeks
Wide pass from imagery, vehicle capture of drivable miles, and selective drone for the spans the road cannot reach. The full ranked work list, grounded in what the camera saw.
- 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
Optional help with grant language for wildfire or resiliency applicationsFrom you: priority feeders and a centerline export. If that is not ready, we can start from public NAIP under an NDA. Pilots over 120 miles are custom-scoped.