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 Hiotographic 
 ^Sciences 
 liOrporation 
 
 23 WES1 MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y 14580 
 
 n\tt\ 873.4503 
 
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THE CANADIAN ENGINEER 
 
 FIRES AND FIRE-PROOF CONSTRUCTION 
 
 iFroir. lilt' Canaiiian l-iNr-.i.NKKw. N(.iv, iS()S ) 
 
 I'.tJiiCr tANAltlAN KNilINrKK: 
 
 Sii!. -1 li.ivc. ns rcqiu>stc(l, lonknd tlnoiiRb tlio p^niplilot you were 
 kind enoHRh to send me, on the Taris (Charity Hizir Firo, liy Arcli. 
 K. O. Sachs, author of Fires and Public ICiitertainmcnls, Modern 
 Opera Houses and Theatres, etc. 
 
 This paper was prepared by the aullior for llie Architectural Asso- 
 ciation, and read r.t its second ordinary meeting, session of iS.); i|,S, 
 Hampden \V. I'ratt, 1".R I.H A , president, in the chair, and was com- 
 mented on after its reading by Richard Roberts, L C C , vice-chuirman 
 Theatres Committee, L'nidon County Council ; Sid Gamble, .\ M- 
 Inst. C.K., F.S I., second ofTicer Metropolitan Fire Brigade; Major 
 Fox, chief othcer SalvageCorps , Thomas Blashill, F'.R.I , H.A , I'.S ! , 
 superinlendinKarc'iiitect London Common Council ; ipt Dyson, chief 
 ollicer Windsor Fire I?rigade ; William Archer; Henry Lovegrovc, 
 .\I< I H A , I'.S.I , district surveyor for Shoreditch ; Max Clarke, 
 A.R.I HA. It has been published by the British I'^ire I'reventiou 
 Committee, C. and E. I.ayton, publishers, Farrin^don street, London 
 
 I find the consensus of opinion m this case to be that while the 
 fire was caused by an explosion of some of the essential oils used in the 
 exhibition of the Kinemetcgraphic views, the conflagration am' the de- 
 struction of the building were disast rously hastened by the fact of the roof 
 drapery having been immediately ignited by the explosion, the flames 
 in an instant running along the whole building, some 300 feet in length 
 by about .)0 in breadth, setting firo to the woodwork and llimsy paper 
 and other decorations of the interior, which, falling from above 
 directly onto the heads of the lightly-clad ladies in attendance, set lire 
 to their hair, their head gear and dresses, thus causing the simultane- 
 ous and almost instantaneous death of 124 persons on whose 
 heads and shoulders at the same time the broken glass from 
 the continuous skylight was falling, cutting into their flesh and 
 inflicting painful wounds and bruises. Still, quick as the des- 
 tructive element was in bringing about this most terrible 
 result, the committee is of opinion that had the several emergency 
 doors which were barred and bolted at the time, been opened as they 
 should have been by persons told off in advance to do the duty, not 
 one half of the fatalities would have occurred, maybe not one tenth of 
 them, as the victims issuing into the open could have been cared for 
 by outsiders, who would have seen to the safely of all of them and have 
 probably reduced the casuilties in most cases to more or less severe 
 injuries to be got over in course of time. 
 
 Mr. Sachs recalled the N'ienna Ring Theatre lire of 1S81, with its 
 450 fatalities ; the Opera Comique (ire in 18S7, with a death roll of 
 115, and other great catastiophes ; the lixeter theatre lire of 1H87, 
 where lOo lives were lost, followe<l by a serious fir? at Oporto with 
 the loss of another 100 lives. He might also have remembered the 
 Bordeaux theatre tire, the Santiago church horror, where j.ooo souls 
 were hurled into eternity, and the Brooklyn theatre (ire of 1H72 (I 
 believe), where i-j(\ more lives were .sacriliced. Mr. Sachs eommenls 
 upon the fact of how soon these disasters fade from memory, most o( 
 them, he says, having been forgotten within from three to seven days 
 of their occurrence. 
 
 The I-ondon Committee calls on I'arliament, or intends doin<; so, 
 to interfere and force municipalities to attend to the safety of the 
 public by refusing to sanction the erection of such flimsy and danger- 
 ous structures and deco:ations, and I am certainly at one with the 
 committee in refusing to understand how it is to be considered as 
 interfering with the individual liberty and action to enact such laws, 
 any more than legislating on compulsory vaccination and other 
 hygienic safeguarrls to the public health ; for, as above set forth, there 
 is no doubt that, had not the inrriminalni'.,' ceiling elotlis been there, 
 or one ol asbestos or other inllainmahle nmterial, and parties at bund 
 to open the seven doors of the building aggregating some .|o feet in 
 width, the Charity Bazar horror would not have been to any extent 
 as serious as it has proved to be 
 
 Emergency doors are of little or no use, unless opened on ove.y, 
 or at least, frequent occasions in a v.ay to let people use them, and 
 thus become ac(|uainti:d with their whereabouts It will be rcmem 
 berod how at the Vienna theatre lire already alhuled to. a certain 
 emergency door of ample dimensions to empty the house in from two 
 to three minutes was, upon an attenqit to open it, found to be so 
 utterly rusted in its fastenings, that it was impossible to cause it to 
 swing on its hinges. Every now and then I have had to remind our 
 successive chiefs of police of the .advisability of their sending a con 
 stable to see that the doors at the Academy of Musii, ( Miebcc, and 
 other places ol amusement be opened a little before the end of the 
 
 entertainment ; there being as constant a disposition in theatrical 
 managers to let the emergency doors remain shut so as not to have to 
 pay extra hands to open them when reiiuired ; and the police in all 
 oiher Canadian cities, and the world over in general, should be 
 periodically instructed to attend to this opening of doors, and have the 
 power of enforcing it. 
 
 With regard to the other pamphlet you favored me with, pub- 
 lished by the same committeeand headed "Sams.Vmerican Opinjonsof 
 I'ire Prevention," the writers seem to be one and allof theopinion that 
 no absolutely fireproof construction can be arrived at ; but that much 
 can be done towards decrease of damage and loss of life by fir", by 
 resorting as far as possible to a (slow burning) system of construction. 
 In the so-called fire proof buildings there .are always loop holes for the 
 lire to creep through, or for smoke and heated gases Floors can be 
 and are made fireproof, e. g. : as here at the Chateau Frontenac 
 Hotel, and in many buildings in other Canadian cities, in the United 
 States and luirope, by using porous terra cotta archings between the 
 iron flooring joists ard resting on the flanges th<!reof, provided all 
 slru( lur.il iron work or the skeleton framework of the building, if of 
 steel or iron, be protected from heating or bending, by covering it 
 with two or three inches thick of cement or plaster ; but after the 
 floors are laid 'lie plumber comes along and cuts holes through them 
 here and there for innumerable soil, gas, water and heating pipes, and 
 electric wires, etc , and in this way jeopardizes the structure. Br,ac- 
 lically speaking, a building cannot or never will be made lireproof, or 
 proof against accidents to occupants, because no one will, for the sake 
 of an accident which may never happen, consent to the discomfort of 
 treading constantly on stone floorr, or of putting their hands to iron 
 doors or sashes, especially where the outer air is at a temperature down 
 to or below zero. And even if there were no objection to that, and that 
 all door and window trimmings, skirtings and wainscoting were of iron 
 or cement, there would still be the furniture and upholstering, which no 
 on(; would consent to do without, or to sit on an uncushioned iron 
 chair and alongside an iron table or a bureau, or at an uncurtained 
 window ; and since carpets, curtain^ -lothes and cushions cannot or 
 never will 'je done without, nor bool ., nor papers, nor wearing apparel 
 there will always be within any so-called fireproof structure, enough 
 of combustible material to stifle one and render exit from the premises 
 impossible in case of fire, 
 
 F"ire, at any rale, should be confined to the floor or story wherein 
 it originated, and to secure this the following precautions must be 
 observed, to wit : Fire-proof tubing of, say, 4 inch brickwork or 
 cemented iron cylinders in lengths joined end to end, and riveted or 
 bolted, anil of a size to allow of the plumber getting into them for all 
 repairs to piping, and with man-holes for the purpose, and the several 
 floors made good and (ire proof around them at every story. Hori- 
 zontal lire-proof conduits, it is suggested, could and should be made 
 under and along the ceilings of corridors and passages, or hidden by 
 false ceilings underneath them, since these narrow avenues need not 
 be .as high as the broader dwelling rooms or olfices of the structure. 
 These horizontal fire-proof conduits or tunnels to be used to conduct 
 all bathroom and other tubing to and from the vertical shaft or shafts 
 above mentioned, and so .as to leave no cranny for fire o." even smoke 
 and burning gases to creep through from one floor to another. If 
 there be no space or no funds for such (ire-proof upright shafts and 
 horizontal galleries' then it is essential at least that the several lines of 
 tubing, where passing through floors and walls and partitions, be made 
 lo run through metallic thimbles to be inserted for the purpose, so as 
 to allow for expansion .and contraction of all hot water, or steam or 
 heating pipes, these thimbles being made to fit tne pipes as a steam 
 cylinder fits around its piston, allowing motion in either direction, 
 while preventing smoke and lire and heated gases passing through 
 them from one llojr or apartment to another. Wnile on this subject, 
 it may be well lo remind architects that even the contact of a hot 
 water or steam pipe with wood work may be dangerous or become so 
 in course of lime by desiccation of the timber, which then the le.ast 
 spark from a spent match would ignite; and that to preve' ' this, 
 thimbles must be used, not of black or sheet or unpolished iron, but of 
 bright clean tin to reflect back the heat thrown on to them by r.adia- 
 lion from the pipes, and with an intervening space of a quarter or even 
 one-cighlh of one inch or so, there be no absolute contact lo allow ol 
 the thimbles becoming heated by connection or conduction. 
 
 Nothing— strange to say-is mentiimed in relation to the most 
 fruitful sources of (hanger of the lire extending from floor to floor, 
 through the medium of staircases and elevators, and I must myself 
 supply this delicienc) by Hiating, which I did, now some 14 years ago 
 in a paper read by me before section 111 of the Roy.il Society of 
 i;,an.ida, and repeated with additions and illustrations before the I'ro 
 vince ot Ouebec Association of Architects some time after : that the 
 only absolutely certain escape from buildings in case of fire must be by 
 means ol a st.iirw.iy enclosed in a fire proof shall extending from hot 
 
THE CANADIAN ENGINEER 
 
 torn to top of the building, and having no communication whatever 
 with the interior of the building, and to reach which, every inmate 
 must stjp out onto a balcony, and from the balcony into the stairv/ay. 
 A thoroughly practical illustration of the truth of this assertion is to 
 be had in the fact that at a fire which occurred in Montreal only some 
 two or three years ago, in a building where a staircase had been pro- 
 vided for safety purposes in case of fire ; when parties from the upper 
 stories made the attempt to escape down the stairs, they were met by 
 the hot and stifling smoke and gases from below, and had to beat a 
 speedy retreat and jump from the windows, most of them being thus 
 dabbed to pieces on the paving below. 
 
 I say that unless there be stairs at opposite ends ul a building, one 
 of which can be resorted to for escape while fire is at the opposite end, 
 the emergency stairs must have absolutely no communication whatever 
 with the interior, at any of its flats or stories. And so of the elevator, 
 that it may not become a suction shaft for the flames from one story 
 to another, it should open onto a balcony and from the balcony 
 onto the building, the only additional time and trouble being two or 
 three steps more in transit, and the passing through two doors or 
 doorways, instead of one ; and as is evident, this stairway may be 
 either within or without the building, provided the balcony or landing 
 be not so enclosed as to cause a suction from the one towards the 
 other, and such a balcony open to the outer air could give but slight 
 inconvenience and only of the most momentary nature. The stairs in 
 such a fireproof shaft need not be of steel or iron, as no fire could 
 reach it — 8 inches brick work being amply suHicient for such a fire- 
 proof enclosure. 
 
 To obtain this much needed reform and have it applied to all high 
 
 buildings, such as hotels, convents, colleges, manufactories, asylums, 
 etc.. Government must step in and make the thing obligatory, as very 
 few, if any, will not run the risk of a repetition of these every day 
 accidents repeated in some quarter of the world or other, rather than 
 go to the expense of an emergency escape from (ire, when such emer- 
 gency may never materialize. These repeated accident ,, though terrible 
 they be, only cause a scare of a very few days' durat.on— in proof of 
 which I must say that when in 1872, 276 persons perished in the 
 Hrooklyn, N V , theatre fire— our people here were scared, a pii')lic 
 meeting called, and I, as city engineer, was requested to visit and re- 
 port on all the Quebec public buildings. I did so, examining over a 
 hundred buildings and pointing out what facilities existed, and what fur- 
 ther doors and stairways were essential for escape in case of fire. This I 
 did in less than the above number of pages, and had the whole thing 
 ready to lay before the committee in less than a month ; well, will it 
 be believed, but such is human nature, that this pompous committee 
 of bishops, French and linglish, the Mayor, and all the high-sounding 
 names of the place— the heartless set -never met again to give the 
 thing a moment's thought. Such, however, I am glad to see, is not 
 likely to be the case with the present London Committee spurred into 
 action, not only by the Paris Charity Bazar horror, but by the 
 material loss of millions of pounds sterling in the late great fire in 
 London, and which bids fair to enlist the sympathies of Parliament in 
 a way to obtain legislation obligatory of fire protection, as it compels 
 safety against epidemics, and strives to do against steamboat, railway 
 and other accidents. 
 
 C. Baillairgb 
 
 Quebec, April 9th, 1898