The Petawawa Research Forest (PRF) is a 10,000-hectare (ha) research forest located in Chalk River, Ontario. The land, which the PRF is on, is owned by the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND), Garrison Petawawa, however, under a joint memorandum of understanding (MOU) the PRF is staffed and operated by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). Under this MOU, NRCan is responsible for wildfire detection for the entire property, approximately 30,000 ha’s. To date, fire detection on the property has been conducted using two fire towers with cupola’s (27.5 and 38.5 metres tall) staffed with personnel who visually detect fires/smoke and biangulate the location. In 2018, the 38.5-METRE-TALL tower was decommissioned limiting our ability to detect fire on the property. There is also a radio tower located on PRF property. This tower, referred to as the “Radio Tower”, has not been used for fire detection in the past. However, this tower has electrical power, which supplies power to the radio repeater that is currently on the Radio Tower. The Radio Tower can have more than one piece of equipment attached to its structure (i.e. the radio repeater will remain on the Radio Tower) and is a suitable location for a fire detection camera. NRCan was able to replace the existing fire detection system in 2022 by way of installing two optical camera sensor systems with fire detection monitoring software by Nuvis Technologies Inc.
The objective of this requirement is to renew hardware and software support for the existing wildfire camera detection system.
The work will involve the following:
Support for Wildfire Guardian Software:
1. Support and maintenance of the existing software environment
2. Diagnostics and troubleshooting of bugs or software issues
3. Administrator support
4. Software upgrades as they are available
Hardware Support for all equipment:
1. annual preventative maintenance;
2. seasonal startup and shutdown; and
3. corrective maintenance labour.
