• Question: Your job seems really cool. What type of things do you burn?

    Asked by whitburnben1 to Rory on 15 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Rory Hadden

      Rory Hadden answered on 15 Jun 2014:

      Hi,

      Thanks – I really like my job. Being paid to set things on fire is fun but it is also very serious. Fires cause lots of damage to buildings and unfortunately many people still die due to fires.

      My job involves trying to understand why things catch fire, how fires get bigger and how they can be extinguished. Most of the time this is related to the kind of things you find in buildings (plastics, fabrics, wood) but we also do research on forest fires to understand how we can protect houses and people from these naturally occurring fires (burning pine needles, leaves, bark and wood). There was a really good programme on iPlayer about this:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b046t9ss/wildfires-2014-inside-the-inferno-episode-1
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b047hlr9/wildfires-2014-inside-the-inferno-episode-2

      It’s important for me to say to you to stay safe and keep away from fire!

      Let me know if you have any more questions!

      Rory

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