Sources_sought_-_fire_ecology_research_1.docx

SOURCES SOUGHT

The US Geological Survey (USGS) is conducting market research to determine the availability of qualified businesses capable of fire ecology research support as described in the attached statement of work. This Sources Sought announcement is not a request for quote or proposal and the Government is not committed to award of a purchase order or contract pursuant to this announcement. The information resulting from this market research is simply for planning purposes to assist the Government in determining its acquisition strategy. The Government will not pay for any costs incurred in the preparation of information for responding to this notice.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541620, Environmental Consulting Services, and associated size standard of $19.0 million apply to this announcement, along with product service code R425 Support professional; engineering/technical

All responsible sources may submit capability statements detailing the ability of their service to meet the statement of work included with this announcement.

Responses to this announcement shall only be accepted through electronic mail addressed to aberry@usgs.gov and must be uploaded and received in their entirety no later than 03/17/2026 at 0500 PDT. Proposals submitted by hardcopy, or any web portal shall not be accepted or considered.

Statement of Work General Information Introduction This work is in support of the USGS Western Ecological Research Center’s Fire Ecology research projects. The work how fire frequency impacts resource conservation in California’s highly diverse shrublands. With an increased emphases in doing prescription burning in order to reduce fire hazard, there is the threat that high frequency can have very negative impacts on resources. Our overall goal is how to balance hazard reduction and resource conservation.

Background The dominant vegetation in California is shrublands and most are in fire-prone landscapes. Many of the species recovery rapidly after fire by resprouting or seedling production from soil-borne seed banks that have accumulated but three-fourths of the shrub species in the state are obligate-seeding shrubs, meaning they only recover from fire by seed and thus recovery is dependent on the time since fire that represents the time they have had for producing seeds.

In recent years there has been a huge increase in state and federal funding for fuel treatments focused on prescription burning, these treatments are generally compatible with both reducing fire hazard and conserving natural resources, but this is largely true for forested landscapes. Shrublands, however, are a very different story since many of the dominant shrub species are not capable of surviving short fire-return intervals that are favored for reducing fire hazard. The threat is that if repeat fires occur at short intervals (10-20 yr intervals). This is a major threat to natural resource conservation since these obligate-gate seeding shrub species comprise ¾ of all the species in the two largest genera, of 60+ species in California.

C. Definitions None.

D. Scope The scope of this project is to diagnose how fire response strategies vary with statewide characteristics and provide research in digital formats.

II. WORK REQUIREMENTS

A. Technical Requirements

1. Work requirements and products:

• Analysis of the distribution of shrub species of different postfire response.

•Analysis of Topographic characteristics, vegetation characteristics, and soil types.

• Extraction of historical fire perimeter data to analyze past fires.

• Diagnose how fire response strategies vary with statewide characteristics.

2. Criteria for acceptance Contractor must supply products and data in appropriate file formats via USB and/or transmitted through the FTP site.

B. Deliverables

1. Characteristics for work All research files provided via USB or transmitted through the FTP site.

2. Delivery dates for work/product to be completed and point of delivery All physical products delivered to USGS points of contact identified upon award.

III. SUPPORTING INFORMATION

A. Place of performance Contractor's facility B. Period of performance 07-01-2026 to 12-31-2026.

C. Government furnished property None.

D. Special Considerations

1. Key personnel qualifications The contractor must:

Have staff including a research scientist who holds a PhD with demonstrable experience using spatial databases for analysis of: California climate, weather, land use change, wildland-urban interface, NDVI imagery, fire history; past experience studying differences among climatic drivers of historical fire activity in the state; mapping California fire regimes and trends; and studies of the impacts of altered fire regimes on native ecosystems.

Have ready access to the most up-to-date statewide NDVI and vegetation maps as well as all available historical maps.

Have extensive demonstrable experience in multivariate statistical techniques, particularly using classification trees, random forests, gams and glms, and unsupervised cluster analysis.

Have demonstrable experience using R statistical programming Have a thorough knowledge of past research papers that have dealt with the issue of fire induced type conversion in chaparral, and how to relate findings to an overall model predicting thresholds for increased fire hazard and the impact on different vegetation types.

Have demonstrable experience dealing with use of fire history data in California.

2. Data rights, safety, and environment None.

3. Security/Privacy Issues