Rough Country Response LLC

Rough Country Response LLC, a veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned small business based in Waddell, Arizona, provides emergency medical responder services, advanced and basic life support ambulance services, rescue teams, and specialized emergency response equipment to the U.S. Forest Service as a prime contractor under total small business set-aside indefinite delivery contracts. The company operates 100 percent as a prime contractor across 154 federal awards with no subcontractor footprint, competing predominantly under set-asides rather than full-and-open vehicles.

Rough Country Response's federal work concentrates almost entirely on wildland fire suppression, forest management, and all-hazard incident response support for the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service across western U.S. regions. The vendor delivers ambulances (Type 1 and Type 2), medical support units (MESU), rescue vehicles, utility terrain vehicles (UTVs), crash rescue trucks, and emergency medical technician and paramedic personnel deployed during peak wildfire seasons. Representative prime awards include a $590,432 purchase order from the Pacific Southwest Region for utility terrain vehicles and rescue/medical services during the Smith River Complex fire (September 2023), an $854,045 purchase order from the Southwestern Region for rescue and medical services during the Calf Canyon fire (July-September 2022), and a $330,004 purchase order for ambulance services supporting the 2022 SRF Lightning Complex response (August-October 2022). More recently, Rough Country Response received multiple delivery orders in August 2026 — a $24,200 order from the Northern Region and a $42,900 order from the Pacific Northwest Region, both for emergency medical responder and ambulance services under total small business set-aside vehicles.

Customer concentration is extreme and geographically stratified. The Southwestern Region (R3) dominates both volume and dollars, accounting for 78 awards and $6.9 million in combined potential value (90 percent of the portfolio by count). The Pacific Southwest Region (R5) and Pacific Northwest Region (R6) place significantly fewer but still material orders: R5 with 17 awards and $2.8 million, R6 with 28 awards and $2.6 million. Four other Forest Service organizational units (Intermountain Region, Rocky Mountain Region, National Interagency Fire Center, and the Forest Service agency-wide) account for the remaining 10 percent of awards. This concentration reflects Rough Country Response's operational footprint and the timing of major wildfire incidents in the Southwest.

Rough Country Response holds four total small business set-aside indefinite delivery contracts awarded by the National Interagency Fire Center with a combined ceiling of approximately $1.75 million. The largest vehicle is a $750,000 ALS/BLS ambulance services contract for Region 13 nationwide (IDC 12024B23T7081, awarded February 2026, running through June 2028), which has generated 55 task orders worth $2.7 million in combined potential value. A related $500,000 emergency medical responder contract for Region 13 (12024B23T7136, also awarded February 2026) carries 6 task orders for $150 thousand. Two additional smaller IDCs (12024B26T7203 and 12024B26T7141) total $500,000 in ceiling and support incident-specific deployments. Firm fixed-price delivery orders and purchase orders flowing from these parent vehicles range from $3,500 to over $590,000, with task order sizes typically scaling to incident severity and duration.

Activity has grown materially over the past four years. The vendor received 16 awards in 2022, 22 in 2023, 49 in 2024, 19 in 2025, and 23 through August 2026. Combined potential value across the 154 awards totals $15.8 million, with $14.1 million already obligated (89 percent obligation rate). The portfolio carries no recompete cliff signal; work is continuously renewed through seasonal incident-driven task orders rather than through bulk contract renewals. The vendor operates without subcontractors and has no sub-award exposure, maintaining direct control of ambulance fleets, personnel, and equipment deployment.