USDA, Forest Service, Region 1, Procurement and Property, P.O. Box 7669, Missoula, MT 59807

B -- STATISTICAL ANALYSIS TO TEST VARIOUS FIRE DANGER INDEXES AGAINST FIRE OCCURENCE DATA. SOL R1-98-04Q DUE 032598 POC Request solictation package, (406) 329-3636. For additional information contact Contracting Officer, Selena Bartels at (406) 329-3229. E-MAIL: USDA Forest Service Region 1 Procurement, lband/r1@fs.fed.us. The USDA Forest Service intends to negotiate on a sole-source basis with Mathsoft of Seattle, Washington for statistical support of a study to test various fire danger indexes against fire occurence data to: 1. Identify the index(es) that correlate best with fire occurence; 2. Identify a process for determining historic magnitude and variance of average weekly index values; 3. Determine an appropriate statistic to identify threshold levels of the index(es) with regard to levels of fire activity. This study is national in scope, thus the results may vary by Region of the U.S. It is expected that spatial statistics will be required for solution of this problem, although more traditional statistics will undoubtedly play a role. The Contractor will be required to: 1. Define the statistical procedure to follow. This will be some sort of spatial statistics analysis; 2. Program the statisical procedures in S+ so it can be run on the Sun Workstations at the Fire Scieces Laboratory (FSL) in Missoula, Montana; 3. Provide any necessay thraining to FSL personnel so they can perform step 2. Contractor must have experience in writing S+ scripts for Unix workstations; formal training in spatial statistics; and experience in solving practical spatial statistics problems. The contract will be for 1 year with a 1 year renewal option. The cost of this project is estimated not to exceed $60,000. Mathsoft is the only known organization with the combined experience and expertise required to complete the analyses within the estimated allotted budget. Other potential Contractors who believe they can satisfy these requirements must demonstrate their ability in writing. All written responses must include a capability statement to permit evaluation of responses. This solicitation is set-aside for Small Business. See numbered not 22. (0040)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0009 19980212\B-0001.SOL)