Lava River Forestry Inc.

Lava River Forestry Inc., a for-profit subchapter S corporation based in Salem, Oregon, is a small business that delivers wildland fire suppression, crew deployment, and forestry services to the USDA Forest Service as a prime contractor on delivery orders and indefinite delivery contracts, predominantly under total small business set-asides across recent August 2026 awards and full-and-open competition on older delivery orders placed against regional IDIQ vehicles.

Lava River Forestry operates almost exclusively within wildland fire and forestry management, providing Type 2 firefighting crews, vegetation management, water handling equipment (Engines Types 3–6, Support Water Tenders, Tactical Water Tenders), chippers, and general forestry services across multiple Forest Service regions. Recent representative work includes a $339,632.22 total-small-business delivery order issued August 9, 2026 by USDA Forest Service Region 6 for wildland fire and all-hazard incident response in Wenatchee, Washington; a $222,278.87 delivery order from Region 6 on August 16, 2026 for wildland fire and all-hazard incidents in Lakeview, Oregon; and a $465,674.64 full-and-open delivery order issued August 16, 2023 under the Region 6 IDIQ for forestry work in Springfield, Oregon. The company holds five active indefinite delivery contracts with the National Interagency Fire Center and Forest Service Region 6, each valued at $250,000 to $500,000, supporting water handling, chipper services, and Type 2 crew deployment through May 2030.

Customer concentration is heavily weighted to Forest Service regional offices and the National Interagency Fire Center. The Department of Agriculture Forest Service accounts for 97% of combined potential value across 25 awards worth $145.1 million, but this figure masks significant operational concentration within the Pacific Northwest Region. Forest Service R6—Pacific Northwest Region places 139 awards (54% of the award count) worth $16.5 million combined potential value, making it by far the dominant customer by volume. Forest Service R3—Southwestern Region, R4—Intermountain Region, and the Fire and Aviation Management National Interagency Fire Center round out the top five, accounting for 21, 18, and 16 awards respectively. The split between the Forest Service national account and regional offices reflects Lava River's position on multiple regional IDIQ vehicles rather than a single enterprise-wide contract.

Lava River Forestry sits on five primary parent vehicles. The highest-value vehicle is Indefinite Delivery Contract 1202SC21T2423, against which 117 task orders totaling $18.7 million have been placed, representing the main Forest Service and interagency vehicle driving delivery order activity. Secondary vehicles include IDIQ 1202SB22T7953 (13 task orders, $377 thousand), IDIQ 1204H119T7254 (13 task orders, $545 thousand), and two Blanket Purchase Agreements under which 11 and 8 task orders respectively have been placed. These vehicles are predominantly regionally based IDIQs held by individual Forest Service regional offices rather than government-wide acquisition contracts.

Activity has been volatile. Awards per year ranged from 13 in 2025 to 45 in 2024, after a 2023 decline to 23 awards from 42 in 2022, reflecting sensitivity to fire season demand and incident procurement patterns. Eleven awards with combined potential value of $2.4 million reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, creating modest recompete exposure on existing regional IDIQ vehicles. The company's earned-to-potential ratio stands at 17% ($28.9 million obligated against $175.1 million potential value), typical of indefinite delivery and disaster-response contracting where task order values are estimates rather than firm commitments.

All 257 awards in the source portfolio are prime contracts; Lava River Forestry does not subcontract as a sub-awardee on other primes' contracts. The vendor footprint is entirely concentrated within NAICS 541712 (Support Activities for Forestry), with 253 of 257 awards tagged to PSC Natural Resources/Conservation—Forest-Range Fire Suppression/Presuppression. USDA registered Lava River in SAM since 2006, positioning it as an established regional provider with two decades of continuous federal service. The company's set-aside posture has shifted: the most recent August 2026 awards carry total small business set-aside designations, while the bulk of 2023–2024 delivery orders were issued full-and-open against regional IDIQ vehicles. This pattern reflects both Lava River's small business status and the Forest Service's use of set-asides for high-volume incident procurement alongside open competition on routine forestry IDIQ vehicles.