Accurate weather information is vital for fire risk management in New Zealand. The current NZ fire weather station network comprises over 140 fire Remote Automatic Weather Stations (RAWS), supplemented with observations from an additional 30 or so MetService stations during the fire season. However, the quality of the weather data being used to gauge fire danger has not been adequately assessed and the current network of climate stations may not sufficiently cover all areas that are susceptible to fire. There are also several methods presently being used to interpolate weather and fire risk variables to locations where there are no measurements. It is important to identify an optimal mapping approach so that fire risk management can be made more efficient and effective.

This research report assesses each of these factors and makes recommendations in the following areas:

1. Upgrading or replacement of stations in the current fire RAWS network which have poor data records.
2. Redundancy of existing stations, the current number of stations, and potential sites for future stations.
   
3. The current practice of using data substitutes to infill missing data.
4. The optimum choice of interpolation parameters and order of interpolation.