Our response to RFP CSFS-2026-07, built around one night you already know. The Tamarack Draw fire, and what 148 camera sites, a staffed night desk and alerts straight into your dispatch would have changed. Six years, $27,000,000.
Three lines from your RFP. Below them, last season's fires, each drawn from the minute it started to the minute somebody reported it.
The Service has no reliable means of detecting ignitions between sunset and sunrise.
The Tamarack Draw fire burned for three hours and thirty-nine minutes before it was reported.
Any system must not add to the workload of dispatch staff during peak season.
The Tamarack Draw fire, replayed minute by minute. Drag the clock or the ridge itself, and switch between the night as it went and the same night with the network watching.
Cam 07 thermal · 01:19:48
Desk check at 01:19Scroll through what happens between the first warm pixel and the engine pulling out.
Camera 07 runs a thermal sweep every 90 seconds. A nine-pixel warm spot shows up at bearing 214 degrees, 6.1 km out, and gets flagged.
A second camera turns to the same spot. The two bearings cross and the fix tightens from a 2 km line to a circle 140 metres wide.
Our night desk sees thermal and visible side by side and confirms smoke in 2 minutes 18 seconds. Nothing reaches your dispatchers without a human yes.
The alert opens inside Kettle Range's dispatch screen, already on the map, with the image, both bearings and the nearest station.
Cold Creek station is 11 km away by road. The crew is on scene at 0.4 acres, small enough to hold with one engine and a hand crew.
Worst districts first, each one live before June. Pick a year to see what's watched at night if the build stopped there.
Each chapter answers one person's question with something to try, so nobody needs a call to get there.
Dana, State Forester
Your lookouts are good at what they do, from 07:00 to 19:00. Sixty-one of last season's fires started outside those hours. Pick a district to see its nights as they are and as they'd be.
Twenty-two of your 31 lookout towers carry a camera, so the places your crews already trust stay in use. The nine seasonal lookouts get first offer of night desk roles at the same grade, trained by us in 2027.
Marcus, Fire Chief
Every camera system promises speed. Speed costs false alarms, and your RFP says plainly that dispatch can't take more noise in August. So the threshold is yours. Slide it and watch the trade.
Lin, Contracts Officer
Nineteen requirements, each mapped to where this response answers it. Fifteen comply in full. Three comply with a note and one is an exception, and those four sit at the top, because you'd find them anyway.
| Section | Requirement | Type | Status | Our answer | Where |
|---|
The Joint Budget Committee, in plain words
Will it pay for itself?
Every line drops on its own and says what changes. The total is exact and so is the bill for each year.
We'd sign the version you see first. All six districts, our desk on nights, sensors on the forest edge, and drones left out until the false-alarm numbers say you need them.
What you're agreeing to, and what we are.
The term runs January 2027 to December 2032. You can renew twice for two years at the same annual rate, with increases capped at 3 percent.
Every image, alert and log belongs to the State. If we part ways, you get all of it in open formats within 30 days.
Sites are invoiced when your staff accept them working, never on install. Yearly services are billed quarterly, after the quarter.
If median night alert time runs over 15 minutes in any fire season, we credit 10 percent of that year's platform fee.
If a year isn't funded, the build pauses. Live sites keep running at the yearly rate and nothing is charged for the pause.
Masts, cameras, solar and batteries pass to the State on acceptance. A 10 percent performance bond covers the build.
Said now, so none of them surprises you in month six.
We've assumed right-of-way approval by April 2027. If it slips, those three go up in year two and Sable Ridge starts at 81 percent night coverage instead of 94.
Affects year one coverageLease rates aren't settled. We've priced them at $4,800 a year each, and the final figure could move either way.
Affects price, under $60,000 either wayInside your own dispatch screen or on a separate one in year one. Both are priced. We'd start inside it.
Needs a decision by March 2027We've offered them first. Their answer decides who staffs nights from 2029, and it's theirs to give.
Affects the desk optionOn 14 August 2025, that's when the Tamarack Draw fire got its first air attack. Next August, it's when the night desk hands over to your day staff.
Every requirement is mapped in Lin's chapter. Responses close 7 November.
At the oral presentation on 19 November we'll bring a live thermal feed from our test site on Pell Mountain.
The notice of intent to award, signed by the State Forester, starts site surveys in January and puts Kettle Range under watch by 1 June.
Signature, Dana, State Forester Date