Research
Research Capabilities & Interest Areas
Our team offers comprehensive wildfire management solutions, including:
Tool Development: We design and develop innovative tools tailored to address the evolving challenges of wildfire management.
Decision Support: We provide decision-makers with actionable insights and analysis to facilitate informed decision-making during wildfire incidents.
Firefighter Support: Our solutions empower firefighters with real-time information and spatial analysis to enhance operational efficiency and safety.
Fire Behaviour Analysis: Through advanced modelling and experimental burns, we assess fire behaviour, fuel models, flammability, and heat transfer dynamics.
Risk Reduction Strategies: We assist in wildfire risk reduction through preparedness measures, vulnerability mapping, and community engagement initiatives.
Ecological Impact Assessment: We evaluate the ecological effects of wildfires and contribute to post-fire recovery and ecosystem restoration efforts.
Smoke Management: We conduct evaluations and validations related to smoke dispersion and its environmental and public health impacts.
Climate Analysis: We analyse the relationship between fire behaviour and climate change, providing insights for adaptive management strategies.
Partnership and Collaboration: We engage with partners to address inquiries, provide annual wildfire summaries, and conduct case studies to inform future strategies.
Training and Capacity Building: We offer specialized training programs on fire behaviour, current tools and management techniques to enhance preparedness and response capabilities.
Real World Impact
Tool Development - Powered Back Pump
Scion researchers improved the traditional manual backpack pump by developing a battery-powered water blaster, which showed superior water spraying accuracy and efficiency in trials. For more information, see here: Powered Back Pump.
Tool Development - UAV Hotspot Detection
Scion, with the University of Canterbury and Tait Communications Ltd, developed a UAV equipped with IR cameras and GPS to accurately detect hot spots post-fire, addressing the limitations of manual and helicopter-based methods. For more information, see here: UAV Hotspot Detection.
Risk Preparedness
Scion's research highlights the need to integrate wildfire preparedness into community planning and design, as traditional awareness campaigns prove insufficient in high-risk areas. For more information, see here: Risk Preparedness and Risk Perception and Preparedness.
Research Burns
Scion's collaboration with various stakeholders enabled groundbreaking research on fire whirls through controlled burns near Twizel, providing valuable insights into their triggers and dynamics. For more information, see here: Research Burns.
Operational Support and Case Studies
Scion’s case study on the Pigeon Valley fire, part of the 'Preparing NZ for Extreme Fire' programme, provided crucial insights and smoke forecasts that informed health, air traffic, and evacuation decisions. For more information, see here: Pigeon Valley Fire Case Study.
Research Programmes
Our team continues to lead several significant, multi-year research programmes dedicated to understanding and managing extreme wildfires, alongside a range of other ongoing projects. These collaborative efforts address various aspects of wildfire behavior, planning, and resilience in New Zealand’s unique context.
Are we ready for extreme wildfire? (Current)
Our current MBIE Endeavour Research Programme began in October 2021 and brings together international and local experts to help better understand how extreme wildfires spread and behave in New Zealand’s unique ecological and social environment.
The research programme has 5 workstreams:
- Experimental burns to understand extreme fires and convective spread
- Using field data and models to understand how fire moves between urban fuels (such as houses and vegetation)
- Assessing national and local level fire planning
- Utilising personal experience, including Mātauranga Māori and laboratory experiments to better understand how native forests burn
- Developing a roadmap for smart firefighting.
This programme is supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. In addition to direct funding, we receive considerable “in-kind” support for research activities from rural fire authorities throughout the country.
Preparing New Zealand for extreme fire (2016-2021)
An MBIE and industry-funded Extreme Fire research program was conducted, bringing together an international team of fire experts to undertake highly innovative research. The program achieved significant advancements in understanding fire behavior and enabling New Zealand to identify, mitigate, and adapt to the threat of extreme fires. It successfully developed a new fire spread model by testing new heat transfer theories using experimental burns. The program created innovative decision support tools that improved real-time fire response by automating and linking systems for fire detection, growth prediction, and smoke modeling. It investigated and developed new methods for preventing and suppressing extreme fires, including smart thermal sensor networks and enhanced firefighting tools. Additionally, the program developed effective strategies to protect important ecosystems, assets, and communities from extreme fires. It also analyzed the use of fire as a land management tool and created a 'Prescribed Burn' training resource.
Partners/collaborators - US Forest Service, Missoula Fire Science Laboratory, University of New South Wales, San Jose State University, US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Laboratory, University of Canterbury, Lincoln University, The Nature Conservancy
RNC-NSC resilience to wildfires (2016-2019)
Funded by the "Resilience to Nature’s Challenges" National Science Challenge (RNC-NSC), this project achieved several key milestones in enhancing wildfire resilience. Key deliverables include the analysis of community resilience and future planning in the RNC-Rural Kaikoura district, the design of processes to integrate traditional and informal volunteers into wildfire management, and the review and co-design of community planning with a Maori community in Northland, incorporating indigenous knowledge. The project also developed wildfire hazard indices by modeling fire spread and creating static risk indices for comparison with other hazards, integrating these with infrastructure vulnerability assessments. Additionally, the RNC-NSC served as a vital channel for applying research to bolster community resilience to extreme fire events, connecting with the MBIE Extreme Fire programme and other related research initiatives.