Fire Behaviour
Case study: Mount Cook Station fire, January 2008
This report describes the fire environment factors and fire behaviour during the Mount Cook Station fire in January 2008. It includes past weather conditions and details on the topography, fuels, weather conditions and fire danger experienced during the main runs of the fire. Fire behaviour reconstructed from observations is also compared with that predicted using current models for predicting fire behaviour in New Zealand fuels.
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New Zealand Experimental and Wildfire Observer Guide and Forms
Well-documented fires can be used to evaluate suppression methods, validate burning restrictions, test fire behaviour models, and limit possible legal action against a fire protection agency. However, the data must be gathered accurately and uniformly among fire observers to have any value. The purpose of this guide is to provide a field reference for researchers and rural fire observers to accurately document important aspects of rural fire behaviour. Several aspects of fire observation are presented in this guide. Field navigation aids, mapping techniques and field instruments for weather observation are explained to help fire observers accurately record fires. Communicating and documenting fire observations can be facilitated by simple guidelines for communications and documentation using standard forms, which are outlined in this guide.Download a copy of the Observer Guide . [2,447 Kb PDF]
Download a copy of the forms.
Spatial Prediction of Wildfire Hazard Across New Zealand - A Significant Upgrade
The objective of this project, conducted by Landcare Research in conjunction with the Rural Fire Research programme and funded by the New Zealand Fire Service Commission’s Contestable Research Fund, was to develop high-resolution, 25-m grid data layers updating the description of wildfire hazard across New Zealand. These layers include both fuel moisture codes and fire behaviour indices of the Fire Weather Index (FWI) System. This system is widely used by Rural Fire Authorities to provide an indication of climatic conditions that would lead to high fire danger, and derived layers that describe fire behaviour. The resulting digital maps will be inputs to the subsequent prediction of spatial variation of fire hazard by Rural Fire Authorities undertaking Wildfire Threat Analysis.Appendix 3: Fuel load and fire behaviour assessments for vegetation within LCDB2
The release of the updated version of the Landcover Database (LCDB2) has resulted in improved description of the vegetation cover of New Zealand. This provides an opportunity to improve definitions of fuel types, fuel loads and potential fire behaviour for use in determining the “Hazard” component of the New Zealand Wildfire Threat Analysis System (NZWTAS). Updated equations or values for calculating fuel load, rate of fire spread, and head-fire intensity (as well as degree of curing and slope correction factor) are presented for 32 of the 43 cover classes contained in LCDB2, where the presence of vegetation implies fire spread. These are assigned on the basis of the current state of knowledge on fire behaviour in New Zealand vegetation types, including a mix of observations obtained from fuel sampling, experimental burning trials, wildfire documentation, and expert opinion.
Link to copy of main report.
Review of fire growth simulation models for application in New Zealand
Fire growth simulation models combine spatial data on fuel types and terrain influences, and temporal data on changing weather and fire danger conditions, with fire behaviour prediction models to simulate the spread and development of fires across the landscape. A wide array of fire growth simulators are available around the world that utilise a range of different modelling approaches and underlying fire behaviour prediction systems to simulate fire spread. New Zealand fire managers have expressed a desire for a spatial fire growth simulation tool to support operational and strategic fire management decision-making. As part of the proposed development of a New Zealand fire growth model, the objective of this report was to review the suitability of available fire growth models for modification and use in New Zealand.
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Fire behaviour as a determinant of fire effects in tussock grasslands
This report describes the fire behaviour associated with experimental burns undertaken from 2000 to 2006 as part of the Tussock Fire Ecology project. This project aimed to examine the impacts of fire on tall-tussock grasslands to provide information on the consequences of burning on the native flora and fauna, and for the fertility and longer term sustainability of pastoral production. The study was a collaborative venture between Scion, Landcare Research, AgResearch and the Department of Conservation. Scion's role in the experiments was to quantify fire behaviour to provide estimates of fire intensity and burn severity for use in describing fire disturbance effects. A secondary objective was also to collect data to model fire behaviour in tussock fuels. Information was collected on vegetation biomass and fuel consumption, weather and fire danger conditions, moisture contents of soil and vegetation, rates of fire spread, fire intensity and flame size, and in-fire temperatures.
Download a copy of the report. [1,105 Kb PDF]
Changes in vegetation composition, plant biomass and nutrient pools, and the effects of burning on soil invertebrates have been reported separately, and can be found on the Department of Conservation website.