Parks Canada has long recognized the value of prescribed fire as a critical tool to foster healthier ecosystems and build resilience against climate change. For over 40 years, prescribed fires have been meticulously planned to restore ecosystems, mitigate wildfire risks, and promote biodiversity. Some species rely on fire for their seeds to germinate, such as jack pine, while others benefit from the open spaces created by fire or use burned trees as habitat.
SENSR is proud to work with Parks Canada to enhance their prescribed fire monitoring efforts using WildTrax, an online platform for managing and analyzing data from environmental sensors. With its user-friendly tools and centralized data management system, WildTrax helps Parks Canada get the most from its complex datasets collected from prescribed fire monitoring programs across the country.
Parks Canada uses autonomous recording units (ARUs) to understand the long-term ecological impacts of fire at national parks and park reserves across Canada.
From 2023 to 2025, we set up 100 ARUs in 20 prescribed fire areas. We left the ARUs out to record for five minutes each morning for at least four days. The recordings collected will show the different species of birds present before and after prescribed fires. Ultimately, this data will show when birds and other vocalizing species return to an area after it burns. – Gregg Walker, Prescribed Fire Specialist, Parks Canada
SENSR specialists who are trained to identify birds by ear listen to the recordings to determine the species in the area and their abundance and then tag that information to the recordings’ spectrograms stored in WildTrax.
Through WildTrax, SENSR has ensured that data from prescribed fire sites is standardized for consistency across different national parks, efficiently processed to minimize manual workloads and expedite analysis, and accessible for real-time collaboration between ecologists, fire specialists, and park managers as well as open to the public. This streamlined approach has empowered Parks Canada to focus on actionable insights, such as analyzing migratory bird recordings to understand the ecological impacts of prescribed burns.
SENSR has supported the integration and processing of data from multiple Parks Canada locations. These locations represent diverse ecosystems, each benefiting from prescribed fire’s positive effects on biodiversity. Recent collaborations include Prince Albert National Park, Riding Mountain National Park, Kluane National Park and Reserve, Banff National Park, Lake Louise-Yoho-Kootenay Field Unit, and La Mauricie National Park. Managing data from across the country together in WildTrax strengthens the insights that can be drawn from a larger pool of information and the role technology can play in conservation.