From tracking disease in Ponderosa pines to managing mosquitoes, Geographic Information Systems are doing more and more to help utilities, government and scientists in the Flathead Valley. Flathead Electric Cooperative is using GIS to map vegetation along its powerlines, said Jake Harte, a data specialist with the Co-op during a talk last week that featured examples of how GIS is being used locally.
For the Co-op, the utility is concerned about trees near its powerlines, particularly during wildfire season. Harte noted the Camp Fire in 2018 in Paradise, California resulted in the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric, as downed powerlines were found to be the cause of the blaze. So FEC, like dozens of utilities across the West, is taking proactive steps to manage trees and other evegation near its lines. The utility uses photos taken by Landsat, a NASA satellite that’s been taking publicly available photos of the Earth since 1972, to map vegetation type and density near its powerlines. The idea is to take a bird’s eye view of the landscape and map where the densest vegetation is near the lines and then ground truth the data for crews so they can take the appropriate measures, such as trimming trees near lines or removing them altogether if need be.
