In the 2001/2002 round, the Commission identified the following as its research priorities:

• identifying and influencing vulnerable communities
• cost-benefit studies to support legislative change to improve fire safety
• fire protection of New Zealand's heritage buildings
• incidence and control of vegetation fires in rural areas
• mitigation of the impact of post-earthquake fire
• recruitment and retention of women within the Fire Service
• recruitment, retention and training of volunteers within the Fire Service
• techniques and technology for firefighting and loss control Projects

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

NIWA
Integrated Climate & 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 seasonal fire severity of 21 locations throughout New Zealand
• A map of NZ 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 from 106 fire weather stations 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 measure against the actual occurrence in order to assess improvements in accuracy.

Athena Partners
Advancing the Recruitment and Retention of Women within the New Zealand Fire Service

The benefits of attracting and maintaining a diverse workforce have been widely acknowledged by the global market. Both the armed and the emergency services have experienced problems in the recruitment and retention of women and are currently working to dispel the image they traditionally hold as a somewhat unequal employer. This is especially true for the NZ Fire Service in light of the recent long term industrial actions between employer and the unions. This research identifies the reasons why female recruitment and retention is occurring at the current low levels within the NZ Fire Service and identifies methods by which female numbers can be increased within the Service. The current recruitment and personnel selection practices are evaluated and compared with similar international and national procedures. This research also includes a climate survey exploring the work-related well-being and perceptions of current female Fire Service employees. Predictors of dissatisfaction and turnover intentions are identified. Methods by which the Fire Service can achieve its strategic objective and thus improve it reputation as an effective career option for women are identified. A number of short term strategies to this effect are implemented and evaluated within this research.

Meteorological Service of NZ Ltd
Forecasting fire weather indices and weather for fire danger assessment and management in New Zealand

Constantly improving weather forecast information can be used by fire managers to identify areas of significant fire danger both in space and time.

MetService routinely forecasts out to 72 hours for the whole of New Zealand using 12 kilometre resolution, in-house weather forecast computer model. Smaller scales can be run for specific areas such as camping fires. Such fine scales provide a much improved representation of the NZ terrain which results in more detailed and realistic forecasts for elements such as temperature, wind and humidity.

Combining different forecasts with observations of current conditions, fire managers can identify a future period of significant fire danger and develop a very good idea of the fire environment they will be faced with should ignition occur. Access to this information via the Internet is possible in almost any part of the country.

In addition to the basic weather parameters such as temperature, wind, relative humidity and rainfall, managers will be able to view more specialised fields such as:

• Animations of the Fine Fuel Moisture Code, the Initial Spread Index and the Fire Weather Index
• Animated wind profiles of the lower atmosphere
• Animations of the Haines Index
• Animations of a Ventilation index

Institute of Geological & Nuclear Sciences
Modelling Fire Spread in and around Urban Centres

Secondary hazards such as fire, tsunami, liquefaction or landslide can sometimes greatly exacerbate earthquake losses. Conflagrations were, for example, the main causes of earthquake losses in San Francisco in 1906, Tokyo in 1932 and Napier in 1931. 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 focuses on improving techniques for modelling and visualising the spread of post-earthquake fire so that we can (a) estimate its importance in a modern urban setting, and (b) suggest some practicable mitigation measures.

We have developed two prototype GIS (Geographic Information System) systems for modelling the spread of fire between urban buildings under selected conditions. Our aim is to improve the systems by (a) extension to a wider range of conditions, (b) inclusion of a wider range of fuel types, and (c) increasing the detail of modelling in high-value business districts.

Report 44: Modelling Fire-Spread In and Around Urban Centres [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 2Mb]

Department of Management & Employment Relations, University of Auckland
Fire Safety in Small Tourist Accommodation Businesses: Working Towards Developing Best Practice Models

In spite of recent initiatives by the NZ Fire Service to reduce the risk of fire in small businesses in the tourist accommodation industry, there has been little or no research into fire safety in this sector. This lack of knowledge is particularly disturbing as the tourist accommodation industry has been identified as a high risk industry. Unless we understand why and how small tourist accommodation businesses comply or do not comply with fire safety regulations, fire safety initiatives to reduce fires and fire related injury and fatalities in small businesses will be ineffectual. Therefore, it is the intention of this study to address this lack of information by investigating the fire safety issues facing those operating in this sector and to examine both the relationship between the small business sector and the NZ Fire Service and role played by small business stakeholders in fire safety in small tourist accommodation businesses. Based on this approach (known as triangulated research), the study will not only identify the key elements for a best practice model that can be used by those operating in the small business sector, but it will also produce a number of recommendations to raise the level of compliance and reduce the risk of fires in small tourist accommodation businesses.

Report 37: Fire Safety in small tourist accommodation businesses: working towards developing best practice model [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 450Kb]

UMR Research Ltd
Identification of Recruitment Initiatives & Retention of Women Volunteers within the Fire Service

Volunteer fire fighters are crucial to the Fire Service and New Zealand, providing emergency response and fire prevention services to 80 percent of NZ geographical area. And yet, the increasing demands on people's time from work and home can make the recruitment and retention of volunteer fire fighters more difficult. These challenges necessitate the targeted recruitment of volunteer fire fighters from broad segments of the population, if the New Zealand Fire Service is to maintain the efficacy of the volunteer brigades and meet the needs of NZ communities.

While the NZ Fire Service has over 10,000 urban and rural volunteers only a small percentage of these volunteers are women. Of the 8,000 urban volunteers, for examples, only about 440 are women. As the Fire Service looks to maintain and/or grow the size of its volunteer forces women comprise a key potential target population. But, the recruitment and retention of women as volunteer fire fighters present unique challenges. This research project would aim to identify the challenges to recruiting and retaining female volunteer fire fighters and to develop strategies to overcome these challenges.

The proposed research would involve:

• Interview with volunteer support officers, fire district managers, fire chiefs and other managers familiar with the day to day experiences of female volunteers
• Interviews and group discussions with current female volunteers
• Telephone interviews using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CAT) of 200 female volunteers nationwide
• Group discussions with potential female volunteers

Report 36: Recruitment and retention of women volunteers within the Fire Service [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 646Kb]

Building Research Association of New Zealand
Costs and Benefits of Regulating Fire Safety Performance of Upholstered Furniture in NZ

Recent research by Wong from the University of Canterbury has found that upholstered furniture may be involved in as many as 35% of all residential fire fatalities in New Zealand. There are currently no fire performance standards applying to furniture sold in New Zealand and recent full scale testing has confirmed the potential for rapid-fire growth and generation of hazardous environments resulting from the burning of some types of furniture (particularly those incorporating polyurethane foams).

Fire standards for furnishings were mandated in the United Kingdom in 1988 and a recent analysis of the effect of those regulations by the University of Surrey has concluded that significant life saving and injury reductions have resulted. The study proposed here will investigate the cost and benefits that are likely to result should regulations be introduced in New Zealand for improving the fire safety of residential furniture, providing independent and useful information to the New Zealand Fire Service and to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs to assist in any future decision-making regarding regulating flammability of upholstered furniture.

Report 35: Costs and benefits of regulating Fire Safety performance of upholstered furniture in NZ [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 743Kb]

University of Otago
Prevention of domestic fire injury in NZ with special Reference to vulnerable groups

The research group aims to complete the programme of work commenced in August 1999, to assist the New Zealand Fire Service in the development of strategies to reduce risk of injury and death in domestic fire incidents particularly among vulnerable population groups. This programme of work has resulted in analysis of mortality data from the New Zealand Health Information Service, New Zealand Fire Service and the Coroners' court.

The programme of work proposed in the 2002-2003 research year will continue to systematically investigate the current situation regarding non-fatal injury, identify population groups or activities with increased risk of fire-related injury, and inform the development of new preventive strategies. The research group will also analyse data relevant to fire safety from a housing and health project within the Department of Public Health at the Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. This will provide valuable information regarding the prevalence of factors associated with fire-related injury and death, in twenty New Zealand communities characterised by relative social and material deprivation.

Report 33: Hospitalisation for non-fatal injury as a result of unintentional domestic fire incidents: New Zealand 1996-2000 [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 222Kb]

Forest Research
Fire Danger Climatology Analysis and Tools

Analysis of historical weather and fire danger data from the National Rural Fire Authority's network of remote automatic weather stations will provide a better description of New Zealand's fire climate, and enable rural fire authorities to make more informed fire management decisions on prevention, preparedness, and prescribed burning activities.

A New Zealand fire danger climatology will be produced by analysing daily fire weather and fire danger data for at least 90 weather stations contained in the National Rural Fire Authority's fire weather network. Use of this climatology and associated analytical tools will lead to more effective and efficient use of equipment and ultimately a reduction in the incidence and consequences of effective and efficient use of equipment and ultimately a reduction in the incidence and consequences of rural fires.

Report 39: A Fire Danger Climatology for New Zealand [Download PDF, Acrobat 5.0 or later, 2Mb]

University of Auckland
Case-control study of risk factors for adolescent firesetting

This proposal is for a case-control study of risk factors and exposures associated with adolescent firesetting behaviour. The first two years of this three year project have 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 and other sources, with the corresponding prevalence in two control groups of adolescent boys.

One of these groups will be boys with diagnoses of Conduct Disorder and the other will be a group with no significant behavioural problems. Nine months after initial contact a group of boys will be re-contacted to determine if there has been any change in their fire related behaviours. This information will be used to establish which factors are related to recidivism. The results of this study will be used to develop more refined assessment tools and in the development of more effective intervention strategies. The benefits of this research will ultimately be in the reduction of fires set by adolescents (close to 50% of fires in the USA are set by juveniles). Data will be collected through standardised questionnaires. Shane McCardle, who is enrolled in his PhD on this study, will carry out all interviews.

Statistical analysis of the data from the three groups will generate relative risks for particular behaviours and factors associated with firesetting and those that are most important.

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