Question: Hello Tom I have a question to ask you, What are the main challenges you face when working, is it a dangerous job and can it be fun?

Thomas Smith answered on 17 Jun 2014:

Hey harwj!

You might be surprised to hear that many of the challenges that I face are quite boring. I think the biggest challenge for any scientist is trying to persuade people to pay for their research. If you look at our profiles, we are sat in a bit expensive laboratory, or like me, in some overseas location with expensive equipment. All of this needs to be paid for, and we spend a lot of time writing to governments and charities asking them to help pay for our work. I think this presents the biggest challenge.

When I’m doing fieldwork, again, the biggest challenges are often quite boring. Most of my preparation involves organising things like flights, making sure our equipment travels safely, and making lots of arrangements with the local fire services and other scientists involved in the projects.

Finally, when we are ready for making measurements, this is when the challenges get interesting!! The biggest challenge is making sure that we get the measurements that we’ve spent months and sometimes years planning for. If I choose the wrong location for our equipment because the wind changes direction, it’s possible that we will come away with no measurements of the smoke, nothing!

As far as danger is concerned, I am usually in safe hands. For every fire that I work on, there will always be very experienced fire fighters. We also have a lot of training so we know what to do if we find ourselves in a difficult situation. The closest I have ever felt to danger was at a fire on the moors of Northumberland when I inhaled too much smoke. I began to feel dizzy, but a fire officer helped me find some clean air.

I often feel far more in danger when I’m being driven by a bad driver, so I never feel like my job is particularly dangerous. I’m sure travelling to and from my fieldwork is far more dangerous than the fieldwork itself.

There are some videos from my fieldwork on youtube if you interested in the dangers, here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMebavfqqN8