The intent of this Special Notice is for informational purposes only. The United States Department of Agriculture/Forest Service (USDA/FS) Procurement and Property Services (PPS), Incident Procurement Operations (IPO), Logistics Contracting Branch ( LCB) intends to award a sole source Requirements contract to Fortress North America for supply of aerial Long-Term Fire Retardant (LTFR) product and ancillary support at designated Airtanker base (ATB) locations, for the purpose of continuation and performance of the Integration Operation Field Evaluation on their fully qualified aerial LTFR product and for ongoing use in Wildland Firefighting efforts. The aerial LTFR product required and supplied must be fully qualified on the Qualified Products List (QPL) in accordance with USDA, USFS Specification 5100-304d (or latest revision) - Long Term Retardant, Wildland Firefighting with amendments.

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, titled "Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements."

This notice of intent is NOT a request for proposals or quotes; however, all responsible sources, meeting the requirements including the USDA FS implemented Specification 5100-304d (or latest version) for Long-Term Retardant, Wildland Firefighting may request and be furnished the solicitation and additional information, upon their request. Interested parties meeting the qualification requirements, may submit a quotation and technical capabilities, which, if received within 10 calendar days of publication of this notice shall be considered by the Government. All responses must be submitted to the Government primary point of contact at the contracting office address shown below. If no written responses are received after the publication of this notice the contract will be awarded without further notice. A determination by the Government not to open the requirement to competition based upon the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.

Please contact the Contracting Officer with any questions or concerns.