Fire presents one of the greatest dangers to the long term conservation and sustainability of peat lands across South East Asia and the globe. Information and management understanding of peat fire is variable between provinces and countries. Most often we can measure the losses of peat land - after the fires has taken it away. We can estimate the economic cost resulting from lost assets, houses, crops and the impacts of smoke haze on national productive and business operations. More recently we are appreciating the impact of peat land fire upon livelihood sustainability, health and welfare of communities and countries surround peat lands. Most often we do not have adequate understanding and answers to the management of peat lands to reduce or remove the impact of fire. Increasingly we are faced with peat land fire circumstances that are large, not well understood and the pressure or solutions presented by external actors are inadequate, inappropriate for the community, the environment or the government agency managing the fire.The tasks faced by peat land managers, working to better manage fire, is diverse and answers cannot be found only in technical fire fighting development, they cannot be found only in community management, and they cannot be found only in the development of a fire management organisation.Peat land fire management requires a concerted effort to be placed in all three of these areas technical, community and organisational. Peat land fire management can benefit from improved understanding, preparation and dissemination of assessments and analyses that cut across these three spheres of management.Existing peat fire management systems, technical, community and organisational are not adequately documented. An assessment methodology is required that can work cross-landscapes in multiple localities and be focused on balanced land management objectives including sustainable fire management.A first step is to draft a methodology for assessment (principles, philosophies and techniques) that is not locality specific but objective driven. Secondly, these methodologies need to be evaluated in multiple locations for their validity and usefulness. Thirdly, to fully ground and facilitate this work it needs to be participatory at local, provincial, National and Regional scales. Developing an Objective Driven MethodologyDraft a methodology to identify the underlying cause, fire behaviour and impacts of fire in peat landsField test Select four different peat land sites to test the methodology, potentially one site in each of Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. Apply the methodology to gather information and prepare a fire balanced management strategy for this locality, including the technical, community and organisational aspects.Participatory MethodologyThe development and documentation of a peat fire management system requires an inclusive and participatory methodology to be applied. If not the difficulties in the future are certain, as is failure of any approaches to fire developed.

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