Statement of Work.doc

Statement of Work Hoosier National Forest

Tell City Ranger District

Contact: Michael J Davis

Fire Management Officer

248 15th Street, Tell City, IN 47586

(812) 547-9247 michaeljdavis@fs.fed.us

WFM-0900-9-HFR-688-0912-01

Project Name: Forest-wide Hazardous Fuel Reduction Hazardous Fuels Reduction- contract crew to establish future burn unit perimeters and maintain fuel breaks with chain-saws.

Job Code: WRHR02 0912 This is an ARRA Project.

Purpose:

The purpose of the project is to establish perimeter locations for future prescribed burns by creating fuel breaks and fell (or mitigate) snags (dead trees). This project will also maintain other areas as fuel breaks to aid in wildfire suppression. This work will involve primarily chain-saws and to a much lesser extent hand-tools.

Description and Locations:

The project is grouped into four distinct areas or items. They are Two Lakes, Oriole, Mogan Ridge, and German Ridge. Each of these areas has been affected by numerous weather events over the past several years, including wind-throw and ice damage. Some work has been done to open up certain trails or burn areas, while other parts remain untreated. Even so, those treated areas may require additional work to meet the intent of this contract.

Two Lakes: This area consists entirely of existing Forest Service designated recreational trails and roads around lakes and camping areas. Approximately 17.8 miles

Oriole: This area consists of several blocks that will become prescribed burn locations. Some locations are along designated roads and trails, but most of the corridor locations will be designated by paint. Approximately 15.5 miles

Mogan Ridge: This area is a mix of mostly designated trails, roads, with some painted prescribed burn locations. Approximately 25 miles

German Ridge: this area consists entirely of existing Forest Service designated recreational trails and roads that will also serve as prescribed burn perimeters. Approximately 17.4 miles

Where the corridor is not a designated trail or road, it is marked with florescent pink paint. Distances indicated below are all approximate and should not be used as a basis of bid or payment.

Specifications and Clauses:

For each of the four areas, the contractor will clear a corridor of all dead woody material for a width of ten feet and remove and scatter that material outside of the corridor. For designated graveled or paved roads, the clearance corridor will extend 5 feet from each side of the edge of the graveled or paved surface. Where the dead material extends aerially above that corridor, such as an extensive tree top or any tree leaning toward the trail or corridor (at an angle greater than 20 degrees from vertical), the contractor will safely remove that material as well.

Any standing snag or tree felling will be restricted to the period between September 15 and April 15. This restriction does not apply to down material. In addition to the leaning trees described above, snags will be felled or mitigated in the Oriole project areas. This requirement will apply to all snags to the interior side of the clearance corridor, within that tree’s length of the line or fifty feet, whichever is less. Stump heights shall be no greater than eight inches for trees with an eight inch diameter or less at eight inches high, and no higher than 12 inches for trees greater than eight inch diameter at eight inches high. Likewise, any active saw work is prohibited around any federal holiday weekend (Saturday, Sunday, Monday), Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in November) and the first day of regular deer season, to minimize recreation conflict.

UTVs (utility vehicles) may be used in the performance of this contract, but not all of the contract area is accessible by UTV or may be too steep or hazardous to access. UTVs will be inspected before use.

The safety plan should also describe an emergency communications plan, and state that no worker will work alone. The safety plan will describe required chain-saw safety training and require workers to wear safety orange vests to and from the work location during hunting season. The safety plan will describe UTV training and the use of personal protective equipment.

If any particular sawing requirement is deemed by the contractor to be too dangerous to accomplish (such as a dangerous snag to fell), that tree will be identified with flagging, reported to the inspector, and mitigated by the contractor by raking away all dead organic material down to mineral earth for a distance of five feet from the base of the tree. If, in the opinion of the government, the identification of dangerous trees by the contractor is unreasonable, that will be cause for termination.

There is no government provided equipment.

Planned start date: 09/15/2009.