Lidar capture / Forestry and wildfire
Forestry lidar and wildfire mapping in Alberta
One flight records the tree layer and the ground beneath it: canopy height, stand structure and fuel, plus bare earth for roads, drainage and fireguards.
Why it matters
Every fire season leaves forest companies, municipalities and First Nations needing to know what is left, what is at risk and where to replant. Before the season, the same communities are building FireSmart plans and fuel breaks.
Our long range lidar payload records multiple returns per pulse, up to 16 by the manufacturer's rating, so pulses pass through gaps in the canopy and reach the ground. One capture gives the crowns, the understorey and the bare earth together.
What you get
- Canopy height model and individual tree detection: height, crown size and stem count
- Stand density and structure metrics for inventory work
- Bare earth terrain under canopy for road layout and drainage
- Burned area severity mapping from imagery and lidar structure change
- Fuel load and ladder fuel mapping for FireSmart and community fireguards
- Regeneration checks on replanted blocks
Who uses it
Forest management agreement holders, silviculture contractors, municipalities building FireSmart plans, First Nations land departments and insurers assessing fire loss.
Capture reference
- Returns
- Up to 16 per pulse
- Outputs
- CHM, fuel map, bare earth
- Best window
- Leaf off for aspen
- Formats
- LAS, GeoTIFF, SHP
- Captured with
- Lidar plus RGB, one flight
- Coverage
- AB base, BC and SK direct
Example scenario
Illustrative, to show the workflowA northern Alberta county wants a fuel break plan for 400 ha of mixed forest on its townsite edge after a nearby fire.
- The 400 ha is flown over two days at 120 to 150 m.
- The point cloud is classified into ground, low, mid and high vegetation.
- Ladder fuels, meaning low branches and dense regeneration, are mapped by grid cell.
- The county gets a priority map for thinning crews plus bare earth contours for machine access.
Deliverables in this scenario: Canopy height model, fuel structure map, tree height statistics, contours, GIS shapefiles.
Have a site like this? Send the location and what your team needs out the other end, and a scoped quote comes back, usually within one business day, with the positioning method and delivery window stated.
Get a quote for this workCommon questions
Answered plainlyCan drone lidar see through trees?
Partly, and that is the point of it. Pulses pass through gaps in leaves and needles, so a share reach the ground even in dense stands, and one flight records canopy, understorey and ground together.
How large an area can you cover?
The manufacturer rates our long range lidar payload at up to 100 km² per day in ideal conditions. Real coverage depends on terrain, weather, access and the point density the work needs, and we state it in the quote.
When is the best time to fly forest inventory?
Leaf off, in late fall or early spring, gives the best ground returns in aspen and mixedwood. Conifer stands can be flown through most of the year.
Related lidar work
All lidar work
Powerline corridors
Wires, poles, trees and ground captured together in one point cloud, then every tree measured against every conductor, so clearing crews start with the worst spans.
Flood and drainage
Fresh bare earth terrain at centimetre accuracy, captured under the trees and brush along creeks, for flood studies, stormwater design, culvert sizing and county drainage.