We are a team of scientists seeking to understand the nature, impacts and role of fire on our planet. The wildFIRE lab’s roots stem from an Earth system science perspective that sees the connections between the feedbacks that both natural and anthropogenic fires have on the functioning of our planet, because Earth is our home, and in many ways fire affects all of us. Fire is often considered a negative force but in fact a range of species require fire and fire it is capable of renewing landscapes and releasing essentially nutrients, as well as causing destruction. Indeed man’s ability to harness fire is hugely responsible for the success of our species and our unique relationship with fire has allowed us to heat our homes and take flights across the globe using jet engines. It is this dual face of fire that is so intriguing and makes it such a fascinating force to study and understand. 

Our journey with fire over the past two decades has taken us around the world and across disciplines, for example: we have rigged US forests with temperature sensors (thermocouples) and set the forests on fire to understand heat transfer to trees in wildfires. We have dug up 200 million year old rocks to assess the fossil record of fire and see how ancient worlds coped with fire, through to showing that wildfires regulate the abundance of oxygen in our atmosphere, securing the air that we breathe. We have created new charcoal based metrics by which to gauge the severity of fire experienced by ecosystems, then transferred this approach into novel tools that can aid fire investigators (both for structural fires and wildfires). We have built and set kitchens on fire to test new developments in fire proofing materials and measured the differences in energy release that result. We have surveyed vegetation recovery following wildfire in a range of habitats, are the leading experts in understanding fire adaptations in UK ecosystems and have joined prescribed fire teams to improve habitat for both fauna and flora alike. We are a core part of the team responsible for building the UKs first tailored wildfire behaviour prediction system (FireInSite), which is underlain by flammability data resulting from our experimental facility, with the FireInSite webapp now being used by Fire and Rescue Services and land owners in the UK. And our knowledge base is used to advise policy makers, government and courts of law.

We believe that no other team has such a diversity of experience in fire!

Our experimental wildFIRE Lab testing facility, housed in The Hatherly Laboratories at The University of Exeter was founded in 2012, and has seen throughout this time £multimillion investment both from the EU and UKRI. The lab is designed to enable flammability testing of organic materials and over the past decade we have become internationally recognised for our innovative approaches to understanding the many facets of fire. 

Today the wildFIRE Lab undertakes world-class research, teaches the next generation of fire experts, partners with business and industry stakeholders and provides consultancy options and tailored CPD training. We welcome you to our webpages and to connect with us.