By: Brynne Morris
Santa Rosa residents forced to evacuate can now see if their homes and neighborhoods are ok. DigitalGlobe has been capturing and sharing updated imagery of the fire all week. The largest satellite company in the world has super powerful sensors that can see through smoke at very high resolution. DigitalGlobe opened up the imagery to help first responders and the community see what is happening across such a wide area of destruction. This imagery is being processed by Robin Kraft, an earth observation expert and developer who grew up in Santa Rosa and wanted to see if his father’s house was intact. Since Wednesday, he has been updating the imagery daily to provide others with the same resource. Here is a look at Robin’s app:
In the video above, you can see imagery of the area from July 2017, and as the slider moves, it shows updated imagery from October 12 at 12:30 pm. Red indicates vegetation like trees and shrubbery, and in grey you can see burned houses and rubble. The map covers areas in and around Santa Rosa, Sonoma, and Napa.
Please share this map so everyone in the area has access to the imagery — it will be updating all weekend until the fire is contained.
Satellite imagery shows destruction of Santa Rosa fire: https://t.co/FdGJCyAFek By @robinkraft🛰️ open data @DigitalGlobe #santarosafire 🙏 https://t.co/JUmBoMF3N5
— @Mapbox
You can also view the original map Robin has been sharing here.
Santa Rosa Fire satellite imagery was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.