Hidden from view

When it came to choosing his career, Stephen Yao was initially keen to stick to his comfort zone. After a PhD ‘synthesising [chemical] “building blocks” to help alleviate the bottleneck in fragment-based drug discovery’, he applied to roles at pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations.

Just six months into his first job however, Yao was made redundant, and there were no similar jobs available for him to move in to. This was when he first realised he’d been doing the same type of work for a long time and that he wanted to do something different.

After many rejections Yao eventually came across Bureau Veritas – an organisation specialising in testing, inspection and certification across a whole range of different industries in the UK and Ireland – and a role he’d never envisaged doing as a chemist: scientific advisor for fire and rescue, and police services.

A significant part of the job of a scientific adviser is providing on-the-spot scientific support, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to different emergency services across the country. As part of their remit, fire and rescue services and other emergency responders are required to lead on resolving incidents involving hazardous materials, including criminal use or release of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials (CBRN).

‘There’s usually a scientific contact, depending on the brigade or service you’re in,’ Yao explains. ‘We operate from Manchester and London so our “home” brigades would be Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and London Fire Brigade.’

‘If they come across a scene where there was a fire involving a hazardous chemical, or they stumble across an illicit drugs lab in a domestic property, the first question for them is: “How do we proceed using our operational procedures but with the curveball of hazardous chemicals?” That’s when they would seek our support and we would advise them on what the chemical might be, what the typical hazards are, or [in the case of] illicit laboratory setups, how to dismantle them, and even safe disposal as well.’

For the team in Manchester, Yao says that typically the services of Bureau Veritas science advisors there will be called upon two or three times a week minimum. Chemical leak related incidents usually happen once or twice a month ranging from inert but potentially hazardous leaks, such as liquid nitrogen tank failures, to incidents involving much more harmful gases such as chlorine, ammonia and refrigerants.

Staying up to date

When it comes to the emergence of new chemicals and illicit drugs it is essential for Yao to keep on top of the literature and to be in regular communication with the emergency services to understand which substances are cropping up so that they can be prepared to deal with them.

Another large part of his role is training, mostly with the fire service, but sometimes with the police. In the fire service, the training is with hazardous materials advisors (HMAs) and Hazardous Detection, Identification and Monitoring (HDIM) advisors who are deployed when there is a scene involving any type of chemical issue.

‘We do a lot of chemical training for them – wet chemistry tests, corrosives and generally communicating our scientific knowledge. We do teach analytical theory as well – the fire service will have a broad array of testing technologies, from pH paper to GC–MS, at their disposal for chemical identification. [This means] if there was an incident involving chemicals which they needed to identify rapidly, they would be able to deploy their kit in the field.’

Yao explains that they also support industrial clients with chemical hazard classification to assist with disposal.

‘Some sites have a lot of chemicals which are unlabelled and require testing using our portable kit in a mobile lab. Bureau Veritas has a bespoke vehicle fitted with a fume cupboard specifically for on-site testing of unknown materials.’

Training and travel

Yao says he particularly enjoys the teaching side of his job, a skill he cultivated during his PhD while helping out in undergraduate chemistry labs.

‘The teaching is quite rewarding – we go into the fundamentals of science and I love to tell stories – it allows the creativity to come in.’

There are several perks to the job, Yao says. For example, he is fortunate that he gets to travel around the UK and Ireland a lot – a key interest of his. He also says his work is enhanced by receiving positive feedback following training sessions.

Above all, he says the role has opened his eyes to what goes on behind the scenes of the emergency services, something most members of the public would never experience.

‘The world of HazMats and HDIM for the fire service is well hidden from the general public … it’s incredibly interesting and the role has interesting practical uses for my chemical knowledge. I’ve learned so much,’ he says.