Stuart Anderson

Fire Scientist

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Qualifications

MForSc (Hons), University of Canterbury - 2009

BSc (Forestry), University of Stellenbosch, South Africa - 1998

Research capabilities

Forest and rural fire research; Fire behaviour, fire danger rating, fuel dynamics (fuel moisture, flammability, grassland curing); Fire behaviour training

Career highlights

  • Assisted with the Victoria Bushfires Research Taskforce, coordinated by the Australian Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) following the ‘Black Saturday’ fires on 7 February 2009. I was involved in collecting data in the field on fire behaviour to understand the fires’ development, spread and impacts.
  • Project leader, Bushfire CRC Grassland Curing project – this project is developing new techniques to assess curing levels in grasslands across Australia and New Zealand (curing is the amount of dead material, and affects flammability). This is a coordinated research effort, involving collaboration between researchers and fire management agencies in both countries.
  • Responsible for developing a software package (the NZ Fire Behaviour Toolkit) that provides fire practitioners with the capability to carry out calculations of expected fire behaviour quickly and easily.
  • Attended the Advanced Wildland Fire Behaviour Training Course in Canada, 2002. This is a high-level training course in the science of fire behaviour and its application at the operational level.

Selected papers

Anderson, S.A.J.; Anderson, W.R. (in press). Predicting the elevated dead fine fuel moisture content in gorse (Ulex europaeus) shrub fuels. Canadian Journal of Forest Research.

Anderson, S.A.J. 2009. Fuel moisture and development of ignition and fire spread thresholds in gorse (Ulex europaeus). MForSc thesis, University of Canterbury.

Anderson, S.A.J. 2009. Future options for fire behaviour modelling and fire danger rating in New Zealand. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland 115: 119-127.

Anderson, S.A.J.; Doherty, J.J.; Pearce, H.G. 2008. Wildfires in New Zealand from 1991 to 2007. New Zealand Journal of Forestry 53(3): 19-22.

Anderson, S.A.J.; Pearce, H.G. 2008. The role of research in managing forest and rural fire risk. New Zealand Journal of Forestry 53(3): 23-26.

Pearce, H.G.; Anderson, S.A.J. 2008. A Manual for Predicting Fire Behaviour in New Zealand Fuels. Scion Rural Fire Research Group, Christchurch. June 2008.

Andrews, P.; Anderson, S.; Anderson, W. 2006. Evaluation of a fuel model dynamic load transfer function using grassland curing data. In: Andrews, P.L.; Butler, B.W. (comps). Fuels Management – how to measure success: conference proceedings. 28-30 March 2006; Portland, OR. Proceedings RMRS-P-41. Fort Collins, CO: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. pp.381-394.