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Identifying and developing smart tools

  • Extreme Wildfire
This workstream aims to deliver tools and information that can be applied in fire prediction, risk mitigation and fire-fighting operations.
Four prototypes for firefighter sensors and tools, and four prototypes for the integrated fire information systems, are under various stages of exploration.
  • a slash sensor tool is under development, which monitors temperature in slash piles and delivers information via satellite or cell-phone to smart phone app. This gives forest managers time to act to reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion
  • weather stations installed near slash piles are enabling researchers to link weather data with slash pile heating, resulting in enhanced predictions of spontaneous combustion
  • a structural firefighting infra-red ‘head up’ display is being explored for wildland firefighters. Existing units are being modified to work in outdoor fire environments and help firefighters identify where mop up is needed during fire suppression
  • a rapid assessment observation platform (easy-to-use drone) is being explored. This would be deployed on initial attack during a fire to assess the conditions on the ground and the fire behaviour
  • spatially explicit probability maps of wildfire hazard and risk are being developed, based on a ensemble modelling approach
  • a prototype to automate fire spread models from the fire line using an Application Programming Interface (API) has been developed
  • a fire occurrence database as a foundational dataset to better understand fire within the NZ context is under development.

Explore the Extreme Wildfire Research Programme workstreams:

Validating the new global convection fire spread theory
Safeguarding indigenous forests/integrating Mātauranga Māori approaches
Improving wildfire prediction in the rural-urban interface

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