The university ritual of couch burning has helped two students from Christchurch in their research into fire behaviour.
Honours students at the University of Canterbury, Cindy Chantreux and Daniel Hunt, are currently completing the third professional year of their civil engineering degrees.
This year, the pair researched fire behaviour using 3D modelling, and have been selected to present a poster at the 10th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan, in October.
Mr Hunt said they stumbled into fire engineering when selecting their final year project.
Fire engineers played a vital role in ensuring the safe design of most commercial buildings, as the work of a fire engineer modelled the behaviour of a fire.