5 Questions Every Contracting Officer Should Ask Before Fire Season Peaks

The National Interagency Fire Center's own numbers tell the story: as of May 31, 2026, wildfires had already burned more than 2.4 million acres nationally, 195 percent of the ten-year average, with over 30,500 fires reported. NIFC's outlook shows above-normal fire potential continuing across the Great Basin through July, and peak fire season historically lands in August. For contracting officers responsible for emergency housing readiness, the window to vet a vendor is closing, not opening.

Here are the five questions worth asking before the next fire crosses a county line.

Does This Vendor Actually Have an Active FEMA Direct Lease Agreement

This sounds basic, but it is where most vetting goes wrong. FEMA's Advance Contracts program competes and awards vendor agreements before a disaster declaration specifically so the government is not starting from zero once one hits. A vendor who says they can "work with FEMA" is different from a vendor with a signed, active agreement ready to receive delivery orders the moment Individual Assistance is declared. Ask for the agreement number, not the assurance.

Is This a Housing Vendor or a Construction Vendor

FEMA runs more than one program under the broad label of disaster housing, and they are not interchangeable. The LogHOUSE IDIQ, a $2.7 billion, five-year contract vehicle awarded to six contractors, covers the transportation, installation, and maintenance of manufactured homes and travel trailers on group sites. That is fundamentally a construction and logistics operation. FEMA Direct Lease housing is a different program entirely: it places displaced households into existing, already-furnished private rental units, with no need to build or transport anything. A contracting officer who needs families housed within days, not weeks, needs the second kind of vendor, not the first.

Can They Scale Across State Lines Without a New Contract Each Time

Wildfires do not stay inside jurisdictional boundaries, and neither should a housing vendor's coverage. A partner with inventory concentrated in a single state or region creates a bottleneck the moment a fire threatens two counties at once, or when an evacuation pushes households across a state line entirely. Ask specifically how many states the vendor is actively contracted in today, not how many they say they could expand into if asked.

What Is Their Actual Placement Timeline, in Writing

"Fast" is not a specification. A vendor should be able to state a placement window in hours, and back it with reference deployments, not a general claim about responsiveness. Lima Charlie, Inc. commits to furnished, move-in-ready placements within 24 to 48 hours of a request, a number that holds up whether the eventual funding runs through a Direct Lease contract, a state agency budget, or another mechanism entirely.

Can They Deploy Before a Major Disaster Declaration Is Even Signed

This is the question that separates a housing plan from a housing hope. A full Major Disaster declaration with Individual Assistance can take time to process, and fire behavior does not wait for paperwork. A private housing partner who can place a household today, independent of where the federal declaration stands, gives an agency room to act during exactly the gap where families are otherwise stuck choosing between a hotel with no vacancy and a shelter cot. Agencies that wait to ask this question until the declaration is already delayed are asking it too late.

Why This Matters More in 2026

The math this season is not subtle. More than 2.4 million acres burned by the end of May alone, well above what a ten-year average would predict by that point in the calendar, and NIFC's own outlook keeps above-normal potential on the board for the Great Basin through the peak of summer. Every one of those acres represents a jurisdiction that may need to answer these five questions on short notice, and the agencies who already know the answers will move faster than the ones scrambling to find out.

Getting the Contract Signed Before You Need It

None of this works if the vendor relationship starts after the fire does. Emergency housing readiness has to be a pre-season task, the same way brush clearance and evacuation route planning are pre-season tasks. Lima Charlie, Inc. holds active FEMA Direct Lease and government contracts today, with coverage that spans multiple states and territories, specifically so that agencies do not have to build this relationship under pressure. Contracting officers can review our emergency response housing capabilities and our housing missions track record before fire season forces the question.

Ready to Get These Answers on the Record?

If your agency cannot answer all five of these questions about your current housing vendor, that is worth fixing now, while there is still time to fix it calmly.

Call us today at (888) 418-4773. A real person answers every time.

Agencies can also reach out to our team directly to review current contract vehicles and coverage areas before peak season arrives.