Up up and away…to get a better sense of what is happening on the ground.  

A drone called Quantix was specifically designed for use in agriculture, but proved invaluable in the aftermath of the Woolsey fire. That’s when AeroVironment, the company that makes the drones, received a call from the National Park Service.

“They reached out to us the week of Thanksgiving,” said Brad Carraway of AeroVironment. “[They] asked us if we could help out and do their environmental assessment with our drone which was capable of covering a lot of acreage in a short amount of time.”  

How much acreage? Up to 400 acres in just 45 minutes.  

Within 24 hours they had the permits in place, a crew on the ground, and a drone in the air. Eric Thompson was at the wheel – or in this case, the tablet.

Over the course of that one day, he says AeroVironment focused on three specific sections of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

“We covered about 600 or 700 acres that day,” Thompson says.

A spokeswoman for the National Park Service says they were surprised by how quickly the survey was done and how much time it saved them.

“Oh, it would have taken them days,” says Thompson.

Quantix is equipped with two cameras that capture multiple images and then stitch them together into one big picture. One camera captures high resolution photos, the other gathers multispectral imagery.

As someone who hikes in the area, Brad Carraway was stunned by what he saw. 

“I mean it was like total destruction on a level that you only see in the movies,” he said. 

Grey means no signs of life. Shades of orange and yellow indicate areas where plants are damaged and close to death. But what surprised everyone were the pockets of green.

“I was very shocked to see that there was a lot of growth still going on with a lot of the oak trees,” said Thompson.

The National Park Service says the data it collected will help to make sound science-based decisions in order to better develop long-term recovery plans for the park.

Thomspon is hopeful.   

“There was great devastation that took place with the Woolsey Fire,” he says, “but at the same time, through the years it looks like growth will continue.”

And if all goes well, maybe in a few years time, the bird’s eye view will once again show nothing but green.