Mesowest alaska fire & fuels

NUMBER: PR: 0040606672
POSTED DATE: 03/09/2023
SUBJECT: Alaska Fire and Fuels Website
This announcement constitutes the only notice.
This is not a request for quotes.
A determination not to compete is solely within the discretion of the Government. Any response to this notice must show clear and convincing evidence that competition would be advantageous to the Government. Responses must be received no later than March 24th, 2023 by sending an e-mail to soaks@blm.gov; however, any technical data received will be for the sole purpose of market research for future requirements.
Under Simplified Acquisition Procedures (SAP), BLM-AK/Alaska Fire Service intends to issue a sole source, firm-fixed price order to:
COMPANY: The University of Utah
UEID: LL8GLEVH6MG3
FOR : Estimated $120,000
ON: 04/01/2023
NAICS: 541511 Custom Computer Programming Services
AUTHORITY: 6.302-1 Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirement
Determinations not to compete this proposed procurement were made because:
The Alaska Fire and Fuels website is used by the entire fire management community in Alaska to determine resource movement and availability for potential and existing wildland fire activity. The website was built to help wildland fire managers make decisions about readiness and response, tactical choices, public outreach and resource allocation. It uses the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS), ingesting daily weather and fuels information from over 250 weather stations in Alaska, as well as analyzed and forecasted gridded data to forecast and display expected conditions for up to three days in the future. This, in turn, can be used to display potential fire spread rates and likely fire behavior. AKFF is the only source for such data in Alaska. The proposed work will extend the capabilities of the AKFF System based on feedback from users throughout the state that has been summarized by the program managers in the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center (AICC), including improvement of data collection abilities, enhancement of graphic, tabular, and map displays, and increasing its inter-software usability. With longer and hotter summers in Alaska, changing forest fuels, the expanding Wildland-Urban Interface, and fewer dollars being delegated to fire management, this tool is crucial to high quality fire management now and in the future.
The University of Utah is the only agency that can perform this unique function for several reasons. The first is that they developed and refined the original web page and thus have the existing code for further development and enhancement. Also, these past nine years of development have allowed University of Utah staff to have an in-depth understanding of the technical calculations and reasoning behind the fire danger rating system that is used in Alaska. They also have gained a thorough comprehension of why this data is critical to wildland fire management as well as how to best display such data for easy digestion by users. Having any other vendor undertake this contract would require a substantial additional monetary investment just to get up to current capabilities.

Please see attached JOFOC for further detail

For more information contact Stacie Oaks at 907-356-5774 or soaks@blm.gov