New Zealand study to protect communities from wildfires

New Zealand researchers are developing advanced models to enhance predictions of large wildfire spread during burning. These high-fidelity models incorporate local weather changes to provide accurate predictions of fire behavior and movement. The University of Canterbury’s Associate Professor Marwan Katurji stated that the models can represent real-time conditions in specific locations, including weather variations. Current models lack consideration for local weather conditions. The initiative aims to address increased wildfire risk due to climate change, protect communities, and minimize environmental damage. The models, with applications in firefighting and fire engineering, could assist in predicting and analyzing real-time fire movement, enabling proactive measures. Wildfires in New Zealand have incurred costs of 82 million NZ dollars ($50.27 million) since 2017. The research also involves fire whirl experiments to understand extreme fire behavior under different atmospheric conditions.

Source – CGTN