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Research in this area works to describe and quantify better the factors contributing to wildfire hazard, as the basis for improving understanding and prediction of fire behaviour, and assessment and mitigation of fire risks.

The aims of the research are:

• To quantify the environmental factors that contribute to rural fire risk
• To develop and analyse a database of fire frequency, causes, area burned and costs
• To analyse and assess social/political/economic factors that may contribute to the fire hazard in rural areas.

Current and recent research in this area includes:

• Fuels Modelling – description of fuel characteristics for New Zealand vegetation types and production of models for predicting biomass and available fuel loads.  Previous work has also focused on identification and mapping of fuel types and associated fire hazard from available data on land cover, and identification of low flammability species for planting in fire-prone areas
• Fire Climate – describing the fire weather and climatic factors affecting wildfire risk in different parts of the country, through production of fire danger climatologies, and prediction of fire season severity and effects of climate variability and future climate change on fire danger
• Fire Statistics – analyses of New Zealand wildfire records (at both the national and regional level) to identify trends in fire occurrence, area burned and fire causes which can be used as the basis for fire prevention planning
• Fire Risk from Human Causes – review of the international literature on wildfires started by a range of human causes, and identification of options to reduce fire risk
• Insurance – investigation of the role insurance plays in the prevention of loss and in the recovery process following rural fires, and of the types and levels of insurance cover available to rural property owners.