NHERI RAPID Empowers Post-Disaster Data Collection from the 2025 LA Wildfires
Published on May 28, 2025
RAPID staff member pilots a drone, employing health and safety protocols.
Amidst the burned-out aftermath of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, the NHERI RAPID facility deployed equipment and expertise to the cities of Altadena and Pacific Palisades, sites of the two largest fires, in support of two overlapping reconnaissance missions.
As experts in post-hazard data collection, assisting in the collection of perishable data is what they do. This time, however, the scale of the damage was almost indescribably vast.
The Los Angeles fires burned from January 7 though Jan 31, 2025. At least 29 people were killed. About 16,000 structures were destroyed, including 11,000 single-family homes. More than 37,000 acres were charred, about 58 square miles.
The NHERI RAPID facility enabled what may be the most extensive collection of data from this extraordinary wildfire event. “The sheer size and clarity of the datasets is unprecedented,” said Jeff Berman, RAPID facility co-director.
In February, as soon as non-emergency personnel were allowed on the scene, the RAPID team deployed 40 percent its equipment to the zone, including Street View imaging systems, LiDAR systems, drones, multi-spectral and hyperspectral imaging systems. RAPID research scientist Jaq Zbdebsky drove the RAPID van from Seattle to Los Angeles in less than 24 hours.
UCLA-led project. The initial task was to support an NSF RAPID grant (CMMI #2524950) investigating damage in high-density, wildland-urban interface communities, led by Ertugrul “ET” Taciroglu of University of California Los Angeles. After RAPID staff trained UCLA graduate students in Street View and LiDAR scanning, the students spent three weeks in the field – driving and collecting damage data from the entire area of Altadena and most of Pacific Palisades, about 30 square miles.
“The scale of damage was striking,” said Berman. “Altadena is a huge neighborhood, and it is almost completely destroyed. Reduced to ash.”
The UCLA-led project team, which includes co-PIs from UCLA, Oregon State University, the University at Buffalo, and Exponent consulting, will employ the data to develop a 3D model of the damaged environment. Importantly, the UCLA project feeds into an overarching effort to conduct predictive modeling of the wildland-urban interface. The data will validate current computational simulation models, which, for example, will enable researchers to look at variables like humidity and windspeeds – and create realistic fire-spread models.
Once processed, these data will be made available on the NHERI DesignSafe Data Depot.
The RAPID facility "field office" during fixed-wing drone flights over the Los Angeles fires.
Public health project. In a second assignment, the RAPID team collected a different type of dataset on behalf of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigation, spearheaded by the Public Health Extreme Events Research group, PHEER, which is co-funded by NSF.
Using census-block locations provided by PHEER, the RAPID team deployed a high-altitude, fixed-wing Trinity F90+ drone equipped with a high-resolution, five-camera system to capture hyperspectral imagery of burned areas. Hyperspectral imagery provides detail across a wide range of wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, much of which is invisible to the human eye. Specifically, each captured pixel samples a one-to-two-square centimeter section on the ground. And each pixel has a unique light spectrum, like a fingerprint.
By analyzing hyperspectral imagery of charred ground, researchers can identify chemical signatures and detect contamination and toxic substances in the soil.
Hyperspectral data can also reveal actual fire temperature, which helps validate prior lab research and identify the specific types of materials that would have been destroyed by heat – or that may have been left behind to pollute the soil. Accurate fire temps also help builders understand which materials are safer to use in suburban areas prone to wildfire.
This hyperspectral data will be made available on the PHEER website, as part of its Southern California Wildfires Health Exposure Map.
Soon, the data collected by these NHERI RAPID deployments will be usable by the research community, by emergency managers who deal with site safety, and by engineers who can select optimal materials for rebuilding safer, more fire-resilient structures.
UCLA student researchers assist RAPID staff with the deployment of a hyperspectral imaging system.
