Wildland-Urban Interface Communities Research Program

This is a Sources Sought Notice ONLY. Requests for copies of a solicitation will not receive a response. This Notice is for planning purposes only and is not a Request for Proposal or Request for Quotation or an obligation on the part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for conducting a follow-on acquisition. NIST does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this Notice, or otherwise pay for the information requested. No entitlement or payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by NIST will arise as a result of submission of responses to this Notice and NIST use of such information. NIST recognizes that proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary data and present it as an addendum to the non-restricted/non-proprietary information. In the absence of such identification, NIST will assume to have unlimited rights to all technical data in the information paper. NO SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS EXIST AT THIS TIME. Background: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has a research program entitled Fire Risk Reduction in Communities. The program's objective is to develop and deploy advances in measurement science to improve the resilience of communities and structures to unwanted fires through innovative fire protection and response technologies and tactics. Included in these advances in measurement science are the development of tools for improved risk assessment and mitigation approaches in WUI communities at risk from wildfires. These tools will be constructed via laboratory and field measurements and databases, physics-based fire behavior models, and economic cost analysis models. WUI fires occur when wildland fires cannot be controlled, often due to extreme wind and fuel conditions, and spread into communities. These fires occur worldwide. In the last ten years, significant damage from WUI fires has occurred in the U.S., Australia, and the Mediterranean region. Within the last 100 years in the U.S., six of the top 10 most damaging single fire events involving structures were WUI fires. Both the number of acres burned annually by wildland fires and the number of houses located in the WUI are increasing. Beginning in 2001 increased funding for wildland-fuel treatments was provided by Congress through the National Fire Plan. The October 2007 southern California fires displaced residents of over 300,000 homes and resulted in over $1B in insured losses. Overall, these trends suggest that the severity of the WUI fire problem will not decrease. Despite the increasing frequency and losses from WUI fires, compared to fires within structures, there has been relatively little research on WUI fire spread. This is due, in part, to the fact that the subject of WUI fire research falls between traditional studies of building fires and forest fires, which in the past has been the responsibility of different branches of the government. Advances in measurement science are needed to effectively characterize and identify the conditions and mechanisms that result in a high risk of structure ignition across a range of WUI community types and conditions. Requirement: The purpose of this procurement is for the Contractor to access WUI fire scenes, deploy instrumentation including during WUI incidents and prescribed burns, collect data, analyze the data, perform WFDS verification, and perform physics based WUI fire behavior modeling as detailed in the attached draft Statement of Work (SOW). Interested parties shall describe the capabilities of their organization as it relates to the services described above and as detailed in the draft Statement of Work (SOW). NIST anticipates issuing a Request for Proposal and awarding a contract no later than the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016. NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large and small businesses. The small business NAICS code associated with this effort is 541690, Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services with a size standard of $15 Million. Please include your company's size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the information submitted. After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a contract. Companies that can provide such services are requested to email a written response describing their abilities to abdul-kudus.yahaya@nist.gov no later than the response date for this sources sought notice. The following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice: 1. Name, Address, DUNS number, CAGE code, and point of contact information of your company. 2. Any information on the company's small business certifications, if applicable. 3. Description of your company's capabilities as they relate to the services described in this notice. 4. A description of your company's previous experience providing the services described in this notice. 5. Indication of whether the services described in this notice are currently on one or more GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contracts or other applicable contracts and, if so, the applicable contract number(s). 6. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in finalizing its market research. Responses are limited to a total of ten (10) pages. The responses must be in MS Word format. Pages shall be 8-inch x 11-inch, using Times New Roman 11 Point Font. Each page shall have adequate margins on each side (at least one inch) of the page. Header/footer information (which does not include any information to be analyzed) may be included in the 1" margin space.