In the 2000/2001 round, the Commission identified the following as its research priorities:

• identifying and influencing vulnerable groups, Maori and Pacific Island communities
• strategies to make homes safer from fire
• social and economic impact on communities of industrial and commercial fires
• incidence and control of vehicle fires
• incidence and control of vegetation fires in rural areas
• fire protection in heritage buildings
• mitigation of the impact of post-earthquake fire
• profiling and motivation of volunteers in the Fire Service
• improved firefighting and loss control tactics

Projects

The following projects were recommended to the Commission as achieving the required standards and judged to achieve the best value for money.

Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences Ltd
Estimating Risks from Fire Following Earthquake

A high proportion of earthquake damage is often due to secondary hazards such as fire, tsunami, liquefaction, landslide, or floods from ruptured reservoirs. Such hazards can be quite significant in terms of how we plan a city to cope with the aftermath of an earthquake. Our proposed work will focus on improving techniques for modelling and visualizing the spread of post-earthquake fire.

We will use a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) platform that will enable us to model the spread of fire between individual structures, building on the results of a pilot study recently carried out for Wellington City Council. A probabilistic model for fire spread between buildings will be developed based on overseas experience and fire dynamics. This will be refined into a deterministic set of rules to control the GIS-based model.

Available data on the probable number of ignitions and likelihood of growth to fully involved structure fires that can spread to other structures will be assessed and modified to suit New Zealand Conditions. This will be combined with the fire-spread model to predict the probable extent of fire spread and subsequent human and economic loss. The model may then be used to predict probable extent of fire spread from known fire sources after an earthquake to aid in the allocation of fire fighting resources.

Report 27: Estimating Risks from Fire Following Earthquake [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 1Mb]

Business & Economic Research Ltd (BERL)
Economic Assess of New Zealand Industrial Fires

This project will aim to establish the full direct as well as indirect (or downstream) economic costs of New Zealand industrial fires. While the direct costs of industrial fires - such as building costs, loss of production costs and the effects on business owners - are published from time to time, the national costs of industrial fires and certainly the wider costs from the associated economic dislocation, disrupted supply-chains and loss of employee incomes have not been assessed. An analysis of these wider costs will enable a proper assessment of the full costs of industrial fires and so provide further evidence of the benefits from successful fire prevention programmes. The project will also provide the essential data to enable effective future refinements of New Zealand's fire prevention programme.

Report 28: An Economic Assessment of Industrial fires in New Zealand [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 839Kb]

National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA)
Integrated Climate and Fire Season Severity Forecasting

This project is providing foundation research for the prediction of fire season severity and improved regional fire danger forecasts. It is doing this by identifying the climatic factors that influence fire season severity and by monitoring the improvement of fire danger forecasts issued throughout the term of the project.

This three-year project will deliver:

• Improved understanding of climatic factors influencing fire season severity by relating large scale global and regional climate patterns with known monthly and season fire severity at 21 locations throughout New Zealand
• A map of New Zealand divided into a number of unique fire climate regions. The fire climate regions will display distinct seasonal and monthly fire severity responses to climate and will be derived using data form 90 fire weather station additional to those mentioned above
• Identify patterns of climate variation influencing elevated regional fire severity by examining the key sequence of weather patterns that in the past have caused elevated monthly fire severity
• Produce seasonal, long-range forecasts of regional fire danger at key periods in the season by combining the new results from this project with modern seasonal climate forecasting techniques, for the National Rural Fire Authority (NRFA) and Rural Fire Authorities These forecasts will be quantitatively and qualitatively measured against the actual occurrence in order to assess improvements in accuracy.

Bailey Partnership Ltd
Analysis of Vehicle Fires using the In-depth Fatal Accident Database

Every year, some fatal road accidents involve the vehicle catching fire. Are these fatal accidents any different from other fatal accidents? Can measure be implemented to prevent or minimise the impact of these Fires?

Fatal road accidents that lead to fire will be investigated using the In-depth Fatal Accident Database established by Bailey Partnership Ltd. Details about these fatal accidents involving a fire that occurred from 1994 to 1998 will be extracted from the database. This subset will be compared with all other fatal accidents in that period to determine whether there are significant differences in those accidents that lead to fires. From this information, suggestions will be made to prevent or minimise the impact of such accidents or fires.

Report 15: Analysis of Vehicle Fires using the In-Depth Fatal Accident Database [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 1Mb]

Department of Sociology and Social Policy VUW
Domestic Fire Prevention: Vulnerability and the translation of safety knowledge

One task that the New Zealand Fire Service faces is to get fire-safety message to intended audience in an effect manner. However, this appears to be made difficult by the operation in an 'inverse-care law': the people whose homes are most often threatened by fires are the very people to whom it is most difficult to transfer information, and who tend least to act upon that information. The proposed research aims to help understand this problem. First, it does so by critically examining assumptions about 'vulnerability' and 'vulnerable groups'. We need to conceptualise vulnerability very carefully as we cannot simply assume that all people deemed 'vulnerable' share similar features, or that their vulnerability is of an equivalent nature. Building upon such a conceptualisation, we proposed a literature search of the substantial sociological literature on vulnerability and risk to identify different international strategies that have been used to reach particularly vulnerable groups. The research will the move to examine the translation of fire safety knowledge to, for, and within vulnerable groups. This will primarily involve interview with Wellington New Zealand Fire Service staff about the way that fire-safety messages are framed and communicated, and about their overall positioning in the New Zealand Fire Service organisation. By treating fire safety knowledge as a mixture of elements, we proposed to develop practical conclusions about ways to improve the translation of safety knowledge to vulnerable groups.

Report 25: Vulnerability And The Translation Of Safety Knowledge [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 578Kb]

University of Otago
Improving fire safety in New Zealand among vulnerable groups

The Wellington School of Medicine research group will continue a programme of research to assist the New Zealand Fire Service Commission to carry out its statutory aims of the fire safety and fire prevention. The research group seeks to prevent fire-related death and injury using public health methods and approaches, which have proven successful in other areas of injury prevention and in cancer control. To date the research programme has brought together, for the first time, data from diverse sources concerning fatal fire incidents in New Zealand to provide a comprehensive picture of an under-appreciated public health issue. Key findings include increased rates of fire fatalities in socio-economically deprived households and among Maori compared with non Maori. Review of a fire safety programme in the Eastern Bay of plenty has highlighted the acceptability of smoke alarm in low-income households, and the challenge of ensuring that installed alarms remain functional. In the coming year (201-2002) the programme will complete work begun, using existing data held by the Fire Service and Ministry of Health, and develop a new project to identify social and physical environmental risk factors for structural domestic fire incidents through interviews with dwelling occupants who experience structural fire incidents.

Report 29: Overview of fire-related mortality data for New Zealand 1991-1997 [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 233Kb]

Report 30: Fire incidents resulting in deaths of New Zealand children aged under 15 years 1991-1997 [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 242Kb]

Report 31: Fire incidents resulting in deaths of New Zealanders aged 15-64 years 1991-1997 [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 253Kb]

Report 32: Fire incidents resulting in deaths of New Zealanders aged 65 and older 1991-1997 [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 212Kb]

UMR Research Ltd
Developing a strategy to nurture, enhance and expand the Volunteer Fire Brigade movement

The recognition of the part volunteers play within the New Zealand Fire Service is critical, with both economic and social benefits. The economic contribution is immense with 8,000 or more volunteers within the fire service nationwide. Also of critical importance is the building of strong and cohesive communities, through fostering trust and co operation amongst our citizens.

The aim of this project is to develop an understanding of fire service volunteers within the overall fire service structure that will assist in the development of a recruitment, training and development strategy that will nurture, enhance and expand the volunteer fire brigade movement.

The proposed research would involve:

• Group discussions with volunteers in both urban and rural areas, including Maori volunteers
• Interviews with paid fire service personnel.
• Telephone interview using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) of 500 volunteers nationwide, both current and past volunteers.

Report 23: Developing a Strategy to Nurture, Enhance, and Expand the Volunteer Fire Brigade [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 753Kb]

Auckland UniServices Ltd
The NZ Volunteer Fire Service in 3 Rural Communities in Northland

This project will provide a case study analysis of the NZ Fire service in three Maori rural communities in Northland. While much of previous research has addressed the area of fire risk prevention, little information has been collected on the actual volunteer fire services that are based in rural communities. This project attempts to inform this research void by researching perceptions of the local service held by the community and the volunteers. Both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies will be employed.

Report 34: The New Zealand Volunteer Fire Service in 3 Rural Communities in Northland [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 314Kb]

Forest Research
Technology Transfer Support Mechanism for the Fire Research Programme

There is a need for continuation of a technology transfer support mechanism for the Forest and Rural Fire Research Programme at Forest Research to increase the availability of research results and speed at which these are circulated to the NZ and international fire communities. This proposal seeks continuation of existing funding for technical assistance to enable production of several additional fire research publications and to extend this to circulate publications and describe research activities via a fire research website. This existing NZFSC funded support mechanism runs in parallel to the Fire Research programme.

The benefits of utilising technical assistance are numerous and include accelerated production and circulation of research outputs in a wider range of more useable formats. As a result, the information is more likely to be picked up and applied by personnel at all levels within New Zealand's rural fire management organisations. Dissemination of information via an Internet website presents further opportunities for making information more widely available and provides a more cost-effective means of distributing information. With technology transfer and website development being undertaken by those with expertise in these fields, fire scientists are also able to spend a greater percentage of their time on fire research activities as opposed to the time-consuming and specialised process of technology transfer.

Please view: http://www.ensisjv.com/NewsEventsandPublications/Publications/BushfirePublications/FireTechnologyTransferNote/tabid/233/Default.aspx

NZ Institute of Economic Research
School fire – economic and social analysis

This research comprises two main approaches to identification and analysis of:

• The economic costs of school fires,
• Social factors contributing to fire-related incidents, and
• Social impacts including risks to life, of school fires on communities.

The first part will draw on existing databases to provide an aggregate picture of trends in the number and severity of school fires in New Zealand, the causes of these fires (malicious or accidental) and costs of reinstatement. We will also undertake a geographical analysis of school fires, using appropriate definitions of 'regions' to establish a 'local level' analysis of trends in incidents and costs. (The databases drawn on will include those maintained by the NZ Fire Service and Ministry of Education).

In the second part, a sample of schools will be selected for surveys and interviews to generate new primary information. The social analysis will seek to identify the mitigation, preparedness and the response procedures available to schools and local communities, and how well these have worked in practice. In addition, the social impacts on individuals, groups and communities (including school staff, pupils, parents and volunteers) as well as the factors which can reduce or exacerbate these impacts will be identified and assessed.

Report 26: School Fires in New Zealand [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 382Kb]

University of Auckland
Case-control study of risk factors for adolescent fire setting

This proposal is for a case-control study of risk factors and exposures associated with adolescent firesetting behaviour. The first year of this three years study has already been funded by the Fire Service Contestable Research Fund. This study will compare the prevalence of particular exposures and possible risk factors in a group of adolescent firesetters identified through the Fire Awareness and Intervention Programme with the corresponding prevalence in two groups of adolescents. On diagnosed with conduct disorders and another group of adolescent boys with no significant behaviour problems. Nine months after initially being interview participants seen in the first nine months will be re-contacted to determine if there has been any change in their fire related behaviours. This will be used to establish which factors are associated with recidivism in fire setting behaviour. The results of this study will be used to develop more refined assessment tools in identifying adolescent fire-setters. The results will also be used to develop effective interventions for these adolescents. These achievements will be instrumental in the reduction of fires set by adolescent (20 to 50% of fires are set by adolescent in the USA). Data will be collected using standardised questionnaires. All interviewing will be carried out by Shane McCardle who has enrolled in a PhD on this study. Statistical analysis of the data from these three groups will generate relative risks for particular behaviours and factors associated with fire-setting and identify those that are of most importance.

Report 46: Adolescent Firesetting: a NZ case-controlled study of risk factors for adolescent firesetters [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 598Kb]