Sole_Source_2.pdf

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION FOR ACQUISITION UNDER THE

SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD

1. Contracting Agency and Activity. The Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, Office of Acquisition and Grants, Sacramento, plans to contract on a sole source basis. This document sets forth the justification and approval as required by FAR 13.106-1(b)(1).

2. Nature of Action Being Approved. New contract to Pyrologix, LLC

3. Description of Supplies or Services. The USGS FRESC is required to perform fire simulation analyses as part of its assessment of fuel breaks and fire behavior modeling for the BLM and other agency clients. The awardee has the skills and software required to do the fire simulations using the modeling program, FSim, a large fire simulation system.

4. Estimated Dollar Value.

5. Statutory Authority. The proposed action may be awarded on a sole source basis under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1) – only one source reasonably available.

6. Rationale Supporting Use of Citation in No. 5. Pyrologix LLC is a wildfire threat assessment research firm. Pyrologix has uniquely developed skills, software, software interfacing, and landscape science approaches to simulating fire spread across large landscapes for conducting wildfire risk assessments. The specific application platform that will be utilized by Pyrologix is called FSim, a large fire simulation system. No employees or existing contractors in the USGS has the knowledge and skillset to perform this work, and we are not aware of others in the private sector that are applying these software approaches to model fire spread, particularly in a semiarid landscape.

The performance requirement is knowing how to plan, implement, compute, interpret, and defend FSim simulations of fire spread and risk.

Pyrologix has staff who 1) are trained and highly educated in fire behavior applications;

2) have modeled fire spread for a variety of purposes and applications, for numerous federal agencies and other institutions; 2) are fire simulation software specialists and have extensive expertise with FSim software, and 3) have experience applying FSim for fire risk assessment objectives that are similar to our intended USGS application. The USGS technical officers have searched the literature, internet, fire-science society membership and meeting proceedings, and more to find other contractors who could perform this work, and Pyrologix appears to be the only potential provider of the needed services.

7. Other Information.

N/A

8. The Efforts to Identify Additional Sources Including the Market Research Conducted.

The program office inquired with fire spread specialists at the U.S. Forest Service Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, MT; we called the leading internal specialists on modeling fire spread in semiarid landscapes; we searched the scientific literature; and we did google searches online for websites.

RFI, 140G0321Q0082, was posted for nine days with two interested parties submitting capability statements but it was determined that each vendor was not able to meet the needs of the Government requires because the capabilities statement submitted did not show experience in fuel breaks, wildfire, or wildfire modeling and did not demonstrate they have the type of experience that is required for the USGS research project. The required experience for the USGS project must include large ecoregional- to national-scale fire modeling/simulation experience, specifically using the large fire simulator (FSim) to predict fire risk and perform hazard assessments.

9. Future Plans to Permit Competition.

The program office will attempt to learn the fire-spread modeling from Pyrologix, such that we might possibly be able to do the modeling within USGS in the future.

This is a one-time procurement. Future requirements will undergo market research and be competed to the maximum extent practical.

10. Recommendation and Certification from Program Office

Based on the above, I recommend this acquisition be conducted on a sole source basis and certify the above statements are true and accurate.

11. Approvals

a. The proposed action may be awarded on a sole source basis under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1) – only one source reasonably available. The Government anticipates receiving a fair and reasonable price by basing it on one or more of the allowable options indicated in FAR 13.106(a)(2)

b. This justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.