Flame Resistant Fabrics

The U.S. Army Contracting Command-APG, Natick Contracting Division, intends to award a firm fixed price contract on a sole source basis with SOUTHERN MILLS, INC. (d/b/a TenCate Protective Fabrics) of Union City, GA under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1). Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements to acquire flame resistant fabrics with radiant heat resistance properties that will be manufactured into a new wild land firefighting garment design for use in a wear trial in the 2012 fire season. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requisition is 313210. An RFI was released on FedBizOps (#W911QY-NPC-WLFF-001) to identify potential fabrics that meet the users required protection level (RPP>10 and THL>500). The fabrics must meet criteria in excess to what is specified in, as well as certified to, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1977 - Wild land Firefighter (WLFF) Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and in some cases NFPA 1975 (Station Wear PPE) as well. The USFS has requested that the test garments be made of all currently used fabrics for use as a baseline in their garment evaluation. The need for this comparative testing requires these baseline fabrics be selected and they cannot be substituted without impacting the data analysis. The selected Southern Mills (d/b/a TenCate) fabrics are: Comfort MP950 and Advance. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the agency. All questions and/or inquiries must be submitted by E-mail. The E-mail address for Laura Arscott is laura.e.arscott.civ@mail.mil. The closing date of this notice is 23 May 2012 at 10:00am Eastern Standard Time.