, ( ., \ FIRE PREVENTION Ice and Fire A Truck (Hook and Ladder), frozen in at the fire in the Equitable Building, New York City. FIRE PREVENTION BY EDWARD F. CROKER EX-CHIEF OF THE FIRE DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK CITY With Numerous Illustrations NEW YORK DODD MEAD & COMPANY 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY Published, October, 1912 PREFACE FOR twelve years, save for a few months, Edward F. Croker was Chief of the largest and best fire department in the world,* that of New York City. For fifteen' years before he attained the rank of Chief he had served in that department in all its grades. Such a life story means but one thing; an experience with fire unique in its richness and variety. Ex-Chief Croker has probably seen more fire than any other man in this country he has undoubtedly directed the attack against this dangerous and versa- tile adversary more often than any other living man. To him fire-fighting became life. It was a real battle, into the fortunes of which he cast not only his re- markable vitality and courage, but also the grow- ing weight of his knowledge. With the whole force of his personality he studied his opponent and worst- ed him in thousands of engagements. After he had battled continuously for twenty- seven years, this rugged fighter retired from the fray, unvanquished, only to take his familiar enemy upon the flank, as it were. He left the business of 252704 PREFACE fire entinguishment to give the fruit of his experi- ence to fire prevention. Through the years the im- portance of striking at the root of the matter had grown upon him. To put out sucessive fires became futile; to prevent them served a truer end. It is for this reason that no man is better fitted to speak for fire prevention than Ex-Chief Croker. He has enlisted in its cause with characteristic vigor and the energy with which he formerly fought the flames. The present volume is one of the results. It might be called his " Rules of Strategy." REGINALD MC!NTOSH CLEVELAND. CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTION i I. PREVENTION OF FIRE IN THE DWELLING AND SMALL TOWN . * 15 II. FURTHER MEASURES FOR PROTECTION IN THE HOUSE THE DEPARTMENT OF A SMALL TOWN 38 III. DEPARTMENT OF A SMALL TOWN Contiued 50 IV. THE PROTECTION OF FACTORIES, LOFT BUILD- INGS AND OTHER LARGE STRUCTURES . 69 V. PROTECTION OF LIFE IN LARGE BUILDINGS 84 VI. FURTHER MEASURES FOR PROTECTING LIFE 94 VII. SPRINKLERS AND SPRINKLER SYSTEMS . . 109 VIII. OTHER ALARM DEVICES IN BUILDINGS . . 133 IX. THE FIRE DEPARTMENT OF A LARGE CITY . 149 X. FIRE DEPARTMENT OF A LARGE CITY Continued 169 XI. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT AND SOME OF ITS DEFECTS 201 XII. THE NATURE AND VALUE OF HIGH PRES- SURE 216 XIII. THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT: ITS NATURE AND USE 235 XIV. HIGH BUILDINGS AND STEEL CONSTRUCTION 260 XV. FIRE PREVENTION BUREAUS AND FIRE MAR- SHALS 273-" XVI. INCENDIARISM AND ARSON 292 XVII. LAW MAKING AND FIRE PREVENTIVE WORK ALONG LEGAL AND OTHER LINES . . 310 * v ILLUSTRATIONS Ice and Fire. A Truck (Hook and Ladder) frozen at the fire in the Equitable Buildings, New York City Frontispiece FACING PAGE Fighting against odds. Wooden shanties in rear of burning structure hamper the firemen. Note men on roof 16 Interior of gutted Equitable Building, Broadway and Cedar Street front 36 A Powerful Motor Combination Wagon. This is a type of the gasolene pumping-engine ... 48 First Fire Engine in America, presented to Town of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, by King George III. in 1774. Note buckets and leather hose . . .56 Interior of the Parker Building, Fourth Avenue, New York. The effect of great heat. Note poor protective covering of columns 88 Defying the cold. An engine at work under trying conditions at the Equitable Building fire . . 96 The work of the cold. A water tower at the Equit- able. Note the motor tractor and the deck pipe 106 A winter fire scene in Philadelphia. Note the men at work on the extension ladder . . . . no Close view of truck shown in previous illustration. Note the operation of the extension ladder, and the deep water in the street 130 vii ILLUSTRATIONS Hard at work at a hot blaze. The destructive car barn fire at Madison Avenue and Eighty-sixth Street, New York City 142 Hardships a fireman must face. A fire in Minnesota with the temperature 54 below zero . . . 152 Inside a New York Fire House. The watchman's desk and alarm gongs. Note arrangement board on the left and record of day's alarm on extreme right 160 Still the principal weapon against the enemy. A typical steam fire engine ...... 174 Responding to an alarm. The fire horse soons learns to love the dash through the streets . . . 186 Combination Motor Chemical and Hose Wagon. One of the types of apparatus coming into wide- spread use in small communities . . . . 1 86 A hot corner. Too close to the blaze to leave the horses. Note debris at walls around engine . 192 An oil tank on fire. The dense black smoke is typical of these dangerous blazes 2OO Interior of the Fire Alarm Telegraph Bureau. The room in which all Manhattan's alarms are re- ceived. Headquarters of the New York Fire Department, East Sixty-seventh Street . . 2IO A boat line at work. High pressure would have been thrice welcome at this subborn lumber yard fire at Eleventh Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street, New York City. Notice condition at side wall due to heat 218 viii ILLUSTRATIONS High pressure under test in New York. The con- centration of water shown here would prove too much for any fire 226 Boat lines at a water front fire, New York. Note water tower with deck pipe at work; also flames raging in window openings and streams affected by wind 230 The fire-boat New Yorker at a water front blaze, Whitehall and State Street, New York. Note turrets on deck of pilot house. Temperature 3 below zero 236 A hot and smoky pier fire. Tugs and fire-boats fight- ing a blaze at Pier 22, Brooklyn, N. Y. . . 240 Two fire-boats at work. Note how close in they are fighting the hot fire. River view of fire shown opposite page 230 246 Tugs lending their aid at the Lackawanna Terminal fire in Hoboken 252 Swarming around a burning vessel, pulled from burn- ing pier shown opposite page 230. Note the fighting tower in operation on fire-boat at right picture 258 Example of faulty construction. This column in the Equitable Building cracked after losing its pro- tective shell. The metal at the right hand edge of the opening was but one-eighth of an inch thick 262 The effect of water on a hot steel girder. The buckle shown indicates that the whole structure above has settled several inches. Such construc- tion causes loss of life through unforeseen col- lapse , 268 Riven and weakened. Note the heavy floor load . 278 ix ILLUSTRATIONS A " fireproof " building after the fire. What re- mained of the East Fourteenth Street, New York, barn when the heat had done its work . 294 A concentrated attack. Burning of the Army and Navy Building, West and Harrison Street, New (York City. Note water tower in action. All the streams from high pressure 312 The fireman as a farmer. Fires in hay and similar material involve careful " spreading " and search 328 INTRODUCTION IF I were to be asked to name the one great need, the one vital problem of the United States to-day, I should answer without hesitation, Fire Prevention. Years of hand-to-hand conflict with fire are partly responsible for this feeling; knowledge of the sta- tistics of the national fire waste has confirmed the judgment of personal experience. This problem is a basic one. Much of the vast energy that is daily and hourly spent in the cause of this country's progress will remain vain unless the enormous drain upon its resources caused by fire be materially les- sened. Conservation, the high cost of living, the standard of living and other great economic ques- tions and questions of governmental policy are closely bound up with the fire loss, more closely than the layman imagines. What would be condemned as the most reckless extravagance in an individual goes blithely on in the nation from year to year, growing with the months. Lives, buildings, treasure, forests; all the things that go to make up public and private wealth, fall prey to this terrible waste. Those familiar with i : PREVENTION the records of foreign countries in the matter of the fire loss look at America aghast. They willingly admit the claim that it is the world's leading builder, but they unhesitatingly christen it the world's chief burner as well. This title is deserved, for the an- nual fire loss in the United States and Canada would pay the entire budget and leave a comfort- able surplus in the treasury of more than one of the leading nations of Europe. The money which is thus fed to the flames and lost each year beyond the possibility of recovery would build a fleet of Dread- noughts stronger than that of any navy in the world. The buildings destroyed would line both sides of a street a thousand miles long, or from New York to Chicago. The Panama Canal could be built by the fire loss of less than two years; the total interest bearing debt of the country wiped out by that of four. For a period of thirty-three years, during which the National Board of Fire Underwriters has kept a record of statistics, the fire waste reached the as- tonishing total of $4,484,326,831, while during this period conflagrations involving losses of $500,000 and more amounted to $1,500,816,135. The sit- uation may be seen to be still more appalling, when it is realised that this waste is increasing by leaps INTRODUCTION 3 and bounds in each succeeding year. Thus, in 1875 the aggregate property loss was $78,000,000; in 1885, $102,000,000; in 1895, $142,000,000; in 1905, $165,000,000; in 1910, $214,000,000; and in 1911, approximately $217,004,000. In the first fifteen days of 1912 the loss was $15,000,000, or $1,000,000 a day, the country over. In this period there was no great conflagration. In 1910, fifteen hundred persons lost their lives and fifty-five hundred were injured through fire. The loss for the United States and Canada for 1911 was $234,337,250. The total cost of fires, excluding that of forest fires and marine losses, but including the excess cost of fire protection due to faulty construction, and the excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted in 1907, according to the figures of the United States Geological Survey, to more than $456,000,000. This represents a tax on the people exceeding the total value of the gold, silver, copper and petroleum produced in the United States in that year. The cost of building construction in the same year, the country over, was estimated at $1,000,000,000. Thus it will be seen that nearly one-half the value of all the new buildings constructed within one year was destroyed by fire. The fire cost for that year was greater than the value of the real property and im- 4 FIRE PREVENTION provements in any one of the following States: Maine, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Da- kota, South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana, or Mon- tana. In 1911, New York City, had 324 fires for every 100,000 inhabitants. London had but 67, and Paris 152. Between 1900 and 1910 the population of the United States increased 73 per cent. ; the fire loss 134 per cent. Roughly speaking, the aggregate loss each year in this country is a quarter of a bil- lion dollars in actual property burned up. All that is necessary to bring the force of these figures home is the test of comparison with other countries of like civilisation. In round numbers, the per capita loss in the United States over a period of years has been from $2.00 to $3.00 it was $2.62 in 1911 annually, as against $.33 in the principal European countries. Germany most nearly approximated the United States in 1910, but her loss was none the less trifling, being $.49 per capita. The figures briefly were these in the year 1911 : United States $2.62 England S3 France 81 Germany 21 Ireland 58 Italy 3i Russia i.i? *Austria 08 *In several foreign countries but few cities reported losses, however. INTRODUCTION 5 When cities of approximately similar population are compared, this great debit on the side of the United States is likewise found. Thus, in 1910, thirteen of Germany's largest cities, with a combined population of 5,500,000, had a fire loss of $1,067,- 205, while five American cities, numbering 100,000 less, had a loss of nearly $15,000,000. Although the years are not the same, owing to the scarcity of correct figures, the European losses for 1904 may be compared with justice with those of the United States for 1907. In such a comparison we find that Paris, with a population of 2,714,000, had a fire loss of $1,266,000, or a loss per capita of $.47, while Chicago, with a population of 2,049,- ooo, had a loss of $3,937,000, or a per capita loss of $1.34. Again, Frankfort, Germany, with a . population of 324,000, had a per capita loss of $.31, while in Cincinnati, Ohio, with 21,000 more souls, the loss for each inhabitant was $5.70. That city has lost by fire, $2,092 worth of property every day for fifty-eight years, or a total of $44,685,977. London in 1911, had 4,455 fires, 1,250 more than in 1910, but her loss was only one-fifth that of New York, while that of Paris was one-ninth. Chicago in the single month of January, 1912, had 2,085 fires and her fire loss for the past five years has been 6 FIRE PREVENTION forty-seven times that of Berlin. Toronto in 1911 had a loss of $432,164, or $172,420 more than in 1910. No foreign city had in 1911 a per capita loss approaching $5, while thirty-four cities in this country were in this class, nine had a loss greater than $10, and five greater than $15 per capita. One of the conditions in European countries that operates to effect a lower fire burden than that of the United States is the far more widespread use of noncombustible materials, due to the high cost of wood. Another and lesser, but still vital, reason is the tangible influence of their older civilisation, which makes them more saving and more cautious than we have yet become. Moreover, a well or- ganised system of fire marshals exists in nearly every European city, and the causes of all fires are investigated. There a fire is considered a crime and the guilty are punished, which results in an in- creased sense of individual responsibilty. But even with full allowance for such fundamental differences between the countries, it must be apparent to the most casual observer that the fire loss in this coun- try, seven or eight times that of the average Euro- pean country on the scale, is enormously and even criminally greater than it should be. It has been my observation, during twenty-seven years of active INTRODUCTION 7 experience, that the majority of fires arise from causes which are preventable; in fact, it may^be said that every fire is preventable. The subject of fire fighting is vastly less impor- tant than that of fire prevention. A further com- parison with Europe on this point makes it clear that the efficiency of the fire departments in Euro- pean cities cannot be considered an operating cause in their lower fire loss. In many of the larger cities of the Old World the fire departments seem ridiculously inadequate as compared with those of American cities. Thus London's department has but 1,380 officers and men, while that of New York has more than 4,000. London has forty pieces of motor apparatus. What then is to be done about this waste which has become a stigma upon our nation? In the first place, the importance of preventive measures must be fully understood. A conflagra- tion may be checked after a greater or less loss by the skilful or heroic work of a fire department, but if it was caused by conditions of improper building or imperfect watchfulness, it may be repeated the very next day. If we are to improve these conditions, we must realize that " fireproof " is a misnomer. There 8 FIRE PREVENTION is but one principle to fireproof construction, whether it be applied to dwellings or hotels, lofts, offices or factories; buildings to be fireproof must be con- structed on a plan and in a method different from that to which precedent has accustomed us. Com- bustible and semi-combustible materials must be ab- solutely eliminated. If I had my way about it, I would not permit a piece of wood as big as a man's finger to be used in the construction of any build- ing in the United States which had a ground area larger than 25 x 50 feet and was more than three stories in height. The law should not permit the use of wood in any so-called fireproof building. Floors, window-frames, doors and casings burn and bring about a condition in which other things will burn. Wooden trim and bases burn. Every- thing that is of wood is a menace and a peril. At the present time when so much attention is being given to the conservation of natural resources and of all the sources of wealth, it seems most strange that so little should have been done in the matter of fire protection and prevention. It is my conviction that the Government should establish a department properly equipped with laboratories, whose business it should be to test and classify the various materials to be used in the construction of buildings, just as the ingredients of an article of con- INTRODUCTION 9 sumption are tested under the Pure Food Law. By this means a sane schedule of standards of known safety and the basis for laws necessary to enforce these standards might readily be produced, and by it also the present reckless destruction of property and equally reckless exposure of life could in great measure be eliminated. Under the majority of the present building codes, the so-called fireproof buildings are fireproof only in the sense that a conflagration does not seriously damage the structure. A fire may rage from room to room and floor to floor, partitions and all interior fittings may be charred and consumed, the contents may be destroyed, but the four walls and frame work, the organic structure of the building, usually come through the ordeal intact. It is the damage to the contents far more than to the buildings them- selves, that makes the fire loss of the United States so heavy in proportion to the amount that is spent for new construction. In the matter of new laws, therefore, it is not so much the buildings which should receive added protection, but the contents and the inmates of them. We must add to the term " fireproof " the terms " death proof " and "conflagration proof." Another element which bears upon this aspect of the subject is that under the present conditions of io FIRE PREVENTION employment, and also very frequently under the conditions of residence in large cities, great num- bers of people are housed without the protection which proper fire-escapes and means of exit would afford. The conversion of buildings from the use for which they were originally designed to other uses, carelessness, heedlessness and greed all make for a condition in which the lives of millions of persons are jeopardised, either during their work- ing hours or their hours at home, or both. Future construction must be of a type which will make it un- necessary for all the persons in the building or even on the floor on which the fire starts, to make an in- stantaneous exit in order to save their lives. Means of safety, both for persons and property, must be secured by making impossible the instant conversion of elevator shafts and stairways into flues for the flames, and by making impossible the rapid spread of flames from room to room and floor to floor. No policy could be less advanta- geous, more expensive or more futile than that which is based on the theory that the safety of workers in a factory or loft building, for instance, can best be secured by providing means of rapid escape. The cost of fire-escapes which would really make such an escape practical would be almost prohibi- INTRODUCTION n tive,even if, as is doubtful in many cases, they could be installed at all. I do not by any means intend to imply that proper escapes and exits are not sadly needed, for anyone who is familiar with the situation at present in our cities and towns, knows to the contrary. I merely mean that this is a wrong end at which to begin a campaign for improved conditions. Both persons and property should be afforded protection in a build- ing by so constructing it that the flames may be con- fined to a limited area within which to burn them- selves out, consuming only that part of the contents which cannot be removed to safety behind doors and partitions which will resist fire as effectively as the walls themselves. One lesson which many fires of recent years have brought home, is the knowledge that no building is more fireproof than are its doors and windows. They are often the vulnerable points. How often is it true that hotels and theatres, apartment build- ings and others in which large numbers of persons congregate, have been deemed entirely fireproof, until a fire, small in origin, has thus demonstrated that they were indeed merely fire traps and ended too often in a holocaust which has shocked the commu- nity or the country. We recover altogether too 12 FIRE PREVENTION easily from these shocks, which pass as nine-days wonders, and it is more than time that a proper measure of attention was given to this very largely preventable waste. In the present volume, I shall take up the great subject of keeping down the fire waste from many angles and attempt to describe from experience those things which are vitally necessary to reduce the fire loss. In the course of this work, I shall discuss both the putting out of fire and the preven- tion of it, but important as it is that every commu- nity in the country should possess an efficacious fire- fighting force whether it be the volunteer depart- ment of the hairnet or the complicated organisation of the metropolis it is even more important, in my estimation, that those things should be done which will prevent the outbreak of fires and enable them to be extinguished at the start. Some of the many things which will lead to such a condition may be here enumerated. Every door and window, no matter how temporary, must be fireproof not slow-burning, but actually fireproof. Every building should have straight and broad stairways of the same fireproof construction. The height of buildings should be limited. The build- ings used for mercantile or manufacturing pur- INTRODUCTION 13 poses, and indeed all in which persons congregate, should be equipped with automatic devices of one sort or another, both for the purpose of giving the alarm and of extinguishing the fire in its incipiency. Frame buildings should be prohibited in all districts which are congested, and indeed modern methods of fireproof construction as applied to the small house would make it seem possible to eliminate frame construction, even in rural and sparsely set- tled districts. Persons who work in factories, warehouses and lofts, school children and the inmates of institutions should receive thorough drilling, so that the great- est factor in our present death roll from fire, panic may be eradicated. Simple methods of ex- tinguishment at the start should also be drilled into operatives and workers, for by this means many a disastrous fire can be prevented. Rubbish should be properly cared for by muni- cipal or private provision. Careless smoking should be made so unpleasant for the smokers by the im- position of drastic penalties that it would become impossible. Effective fire departments and con- stant watchfulness to improve departments should be the aim and pride of all towns and cities, and modern methods of fire extinguishment should be 14 FIRE PREVENTION introduced as the very best form of insurance against unnecessary loss. In the matter of fire de- partments, great strides have been made during the past three decades and great strides are being made each year, but this happy condition does not apply to the more simple and basic matter of prevention, which, if properly carried out, would render the de- partments well-nigh idle. The fighting of many fires and the study of the subjects both of fire extinguishment and fire pre- vention, during my years of connection with the New York Fire Department have led me to set down the recommendations and plans which will be found in the chapters of this book, and it is my sincere hope that by the adoption of at least some of them in this great country, the annual sacrifice of life and property to the most destructive of the elements may be somewhat reduced. CHAPTER I PREVENTION OF FIRE IN THE DWELLING AND SMALL TOWN IT seems obvious that the discussion of the im- portant subject of fire prevention should begin at the. beginning and should, in consequence, devote itself first to the home in which the individual lives. Moreover, although the great fires of this country have occurred, for the most part, in places of manu- facture, theatres and large public buildings of one or another kind, nevertheless the majority of all the fires and a very large portion of the fire loss be- long to the dwelling house. There is a fundamental mistake which has been the cause of much loss and suffering in this country, and which arises from a wrong idea as to the con- struction of the small house. It may be said that there are some twelve million buildings in the United States, and of this number probably eleven millions have been built in entire disregard of the combustible nature of their materials. For the most part, they have been built of white and yellow pine, two of the 15 16 FIRE PREVENTION woods which burn most readily, and even when the walls are of brick or stone, the combustible lining materials burn as freely as if the whole structure were of wood. The case of New Orleans may be taken as typical of many cities. There, in 1911, 90 fires occurred in brick or stone buildings, 445 in wooden buildings and 41 in buildings of other character. It is highly unfortunate that so many houses in this country, especially in the rural districts, have shingle roofs, which form one of the greatest dan- gers for fire that can be imagined. Indeed, it seems almost as if the shingle roof had been designed for the purpose of fostering and concealing a spark which will later burst out into flames. A recent conflagration in Columbus, Ga., is attributed to this cause. At one time several hundred roofs were in flames; the damage was $250,000. Both the errors of building houses of wood and other in- flammable material and roofs of shingles arise from an idea of false economy. There has doubtless been some excuse for the construction of such houses in the past, before the era of modern methods of construction and the discovery of a num- ber of most useful building materials. The idea is now nursed and favoured by many builders who c oj 4 v_ <: OJ C| I J 3 S 3 CJ b 3 FIRE IN THE DWELLING 17 have a selfish interest in the matter and believe that they can obtain greater profits by recommending a wooden type of construction. Experiments have shown, however, that a number of types far prefer- able to the typical frame house, can be built at a cost but slightly greater, and will prove in the long run much more truly economical because of lower in- surance rates and decreased loss. A special committee of the Boston Chamber of Commerce recently undertook the study of this sub- ject, and the result of its investigation was greatly in favour of fireproof or semi-fireproof materials for the construction of small houses. Thus they found that the average estimate for a frame build- ing of certain type an eight-room house of good design and arrangement, of which a model had ac- tually been built near Boston and whose type ap- proximated that of dozens of houses which are now being erected throughout the East was $6,759.95. The average increased cost for other types was found to be as follows : For a frame building covered with shingles, 1.61%; For stucco on frame, 2.92%; For brick veneer on studding, 5.83%; For stucco on hollow block, 6.34%; For brick veneer on boarding, 6.95% For 10" brick wall, hollow, 9.16%; And for brick veneer on hollow block, 10.77%. i8 FIRE PREVENTION During the investigation it was also found that the owners of a special form of poured concrete had built a six-room house at approximately the same cost as the cheapest frame construction, or about 15 per cent, less than brick wall construction. At an outside estimate, second-class, or fire-re- sistant, construction for small houses does not in- volve a cost of more than 15 per cent, more than third-class or highly combustible construction. A well-known architect * has made a careful in- vestigation of practical costs on a $10,000 house, which he has summarized as follows: " The exterior walls are of brick eight inches thick, with wooden furring strips against the inner surface of which the lath and plaster are applied. The cost of this brick work, including the necessary furring and the somewhat more expensive window frames and finish required, would be about $1,200. The exterior frames, if built of wood, with shingles or clapboards, would cost about $600 less, and if in frame with metal lathing and cement plaster, about $500 less. In other words, if the total cost of the house in brick is $10,000, the saving in wood would be 6 per cent, and in cement plaster 5 per cent. The figures here given are based on carefully * Mr. William D. Austin. FIRE IN THE DWELLING 19 made estimates which were obtained from reputable contractors and, generally speaking, represent the cost of wood, stucco and brick walls." A firm of builders in Ohio who have been en- gaged for fifteen years in building moderate sized houses for sale, reported to this Boston committee : " We have built about 600 houses in the city of Columbus. The first year we built entirely of frame, the second year about half brick and half frame, and then we figured out the cost between the brick and the frame houses, and we found that the actual dif- ference did not exceed $400 on a $5,000 house, or about 8 per cent, more for brick than for frame. We built most of our houses with a 9-inch wall and a i -inch air space, tying the two walls together with metal ties and furring, lathing and plastering on the inside. Taking the saving in insurance, heating and painting on the brick house, we have found that there was really no difference in the cost of the houses at the end of a few years, and we now build brick houses almost altogether. When we come to sell the house, we find that we can always get about $ 1,000 more for the brick house than for the frame house on account of the beuaty, durability and econ- omy, which always seem to speak for themselves. We have found that it takes 33 1-3 per cent, more 20 FIRE PREVENTION fuel to heat a frame house than it does for one of brick." The continued construction of frame houses would, therefore, seem to be a mistake, even from the point of view of cost, when the expenses of de- preciation and upkeep are considered. The same is true of the popular shingle roof. For this pur- pose other materials, such as tile, slate or one of the many fireproof roofings, can be substituted for shingles at but little increase in expense and with a great increase in wearing qualities. From the point of view of fire danger, there is no need for argument as to the advantages of second- class over third-class construction, and it is my belief that the time is not far distant when first-class con- struction, by which is meant construction as nearly fireproof as is humanly possible, will be within the range of the initial cost of small houses. If the danger to life and property involved in wood con- struction for the small detached dwelling is great, the danger of such antiquated construction for tene- ments and the poorer class of apartment houses, such as are frequently found in country towns and small cities, is even greater. In such buildings it is a positive menace to any community, and should be rigorously proscribed by law. FIRE IN THE DWELLING 21 Of course, in the large cities, wooden construc- tion is now forbidden in all congested areas. In New York this has been the case for a number of years, and no new buildings of wood have been per- mitted recently within the more congested boroughs. The designation " fire limits '' is used in New York to mark that district within which no frame structure may be built. In Manhattan it includes all of the portion south of i65th Street and the Harlem River; in the Bronx, it includes the district which is roughly bounded by the most northerly point of Manhattan; in Brooklyn it is irregular, but a large portion of the borough is included, while the same is true of Queens. I have observed that in portions of Manhattan outside the fire limits, owners do not take advantage of the lack of restric- tion, but build of brick, not of wood. In Philadelphia, no wooden structure is permit- ted, except in portions of the 2ist, 27th and 38th wards, within the entire city limits. Even there, such buildings may not be constructed unless the ap- plicant shall have the consent of at least two-thirds of the adjoining property owners on both sides of the street, and it is not allowable to enlarge a frame building, to remove any of it to an adjoining lot, or to repair or reconstruct any such building which has 22 FIRE PREVENTION been damaged more than 50 per cent, of its original value. No wooden building may exceed forty-five feet in height, and all must be separated by at least three feet or by brick walls. As a matter of fact, it is rare to find wooden houses being constructed in the city of Ben Franklin, who was ahead of his time in advising against this kind of construction. In a letter written about 1735, he advised the passage of a law which would forbid too shallow hearths and the putting of wooden mouldings on each side of the fireplace. Pittsburg has recently awakened to its danger from the presence of third-class buildings, which are huddled in great numbers in the more densely built-up portions of the city and are a relic of less enlightened times. In 1909, Chicago, according to the report of the United States Geological Survey, was the greatest offender in the matter of wooden buildings, among the cities of the country, the cost of such buildings there amounting to a total of $13,438,880. San Francisco was second, with a total of $12,000,000. Philadelphia had only twenty-four new wooden buildings, representing a total cost of $38,000, while Reading, Pa., was the only city that reported no wooden buildings in that year. FIRE IN THE DWELLING 23 Even since 1909 there has been an awakening among the larger cities to the increased necessity of proper construction, and more and more drastic laws to restrict improper building are to be found among the progressive municipalities. I assume, therefore, that this evil is being eradicated with more or less vigour, but I cannot put too much stress upon the importance of the subject or recommend too strongly the careful consideration of the fire hazard to all who live in moderate-sized dwellings. Whatever be the construction of a home, there are certain preventive measures which it is the duty of every municipality to enforce. For the most part, they are very simple and inexpensive, and would be applied to many homes in which they are now neglected were it not for the peculiar feeling which so many persons have, that takes form in the phrase, " A fire will never happen to me." A great many fires in private houses, especially those at some distance from fire protection, gain great head- way because those present at the start do not know how to put out little blazes at their inception. The first thought of these persons is to run out and cry the alarm, but, in nine cases out of ten, while they are thus engaged, a draft from some door or win- dow which they have left open transforms the in- 24 FIRE PREVENTION significant blaze into a real fire, so that when the fire fighters arrive, they find a hard task confronting them. In most private houses, fires are caused by care- lessness or ignorance, and by disregard of the axiom that all fires are the same size at the start. Matches of the wrong kind or matches carelessly thrown about are the cause of an incredible number of fires. No match should be permitted by law which will strike elsewhere than on the box, and in every house where matches are used for starting stoves, lighting gas jets, smoking, or any other purpose, there should be proper metal receptacles in which the burnt match should invariably be deposited. Those who are not familiar with the records of fire- fighting or have not had access to the Fire Mar- shal's reports in their city or town, would be as- tonished to learn of the percentage of fires which have been caused by rats nibbling so-called par- lour matches. Cleanliness is a first requisite in guarding against fires, as there is nothing more dangerous than ac- cumulated rubbish of any sort, enclosed in a cellar or garret, either of which is usually considered a handy place to stow away discarded articles. Fur- naces and stoves are often improperly protected. They should be carefully guarded by asbestos or FIRE IN THE DWELLING 25 metal covering placed over any adjacent or nearby woodwork. If gas lights are used, they should not be placed near windows where lace curtains or other inflammable material can come in contact with the flame. Moreover, gas brackets should, in most cases, be fixed and not swinging, as many a serious fire has resulted from a careless push against a movable bracket which has brought the flames next to a window curtain. If kerosene lamps are used, they should be of the safety type, which will not explode in case the lamp is knocked off the table in any manner, but will immediately go out. Such a lamp is but little more expensive than one of the other and danger- ous type, and can be easily obta'ned. In case there are electric lights in the house, they should be properly placed in compliance with the regulations of the local authorities or Board of Underwriters, as faulty insulation and improper wiring cause a large percentage of each year's fires. Wax tapers and candles should be entirely tabooed. Not one person in ten gives any thought to these everyday matters of how his house is lighted, and an even smaller proportion know anything about the wiring in their houses provided they be lighted with elec* tricity. Defective flues are the cause of a great many 26 FIRE PREVENTION fires. In the city of Rochester, for instance, ac- cording to a bulletin of the Chamber of Commerce, ("The Prevention of Fire") there were 89 fires during the months of January and February, 1911. Of these, 15 were caused by overheated chimneys. In New Orleans there were 31 fires from this cause in 1911. This type of blaze arises frequently from faulty construction of the house by which some of the weight is borne by the chimney. In cases of this kind, when the building settles, the flue develops cracks which easily communicate fires to the sur- rounding structure. Most flues have an inside meas- urement of four inches. They should measure eight inches, as in this case the bricks may be interlocked, whereas a 4-inch flue takes in the width of but one brick. Before the season when fires are lighted each year, inspection of flues and fireplaces should be a portion of the regular household routine. Inflammable material should not be left near a stove or furnace. Waste paper kept near a kitchen range is very frequently a source of trouble. Again, hot ashes are responsible for numerous fires. All ashes and clinkers should be kept in a closed metal receptacle and carried away to a point where they can be dumped without danger to surrounding property. Stovepipes should never be allowed to FIRE IN THE DWELLING 27 run through the roofs or sides of buildings, and though this practice in confined, of course, to the cheapest type of structure, it has nevertheless caused a number of serious fires. More trouble comes from spontaneous combus- tion in houses than persons ordinarily realise. Oily rags are left in wooden boxes, or carelessly thrown down in different parts of a house, and de- velop heat which frequently increases to the point of combustion. Workmen in a house are not in- frequently the first cause of fires of this kind, as they leave their rags or waste or their working clothes, soaked with oil, in dangerous places. Articles of this nature should be placed outdoors immediately after use, as spontaneous combustion is often to be feared from them after twenty-four hours. Although fire flees before water, it does not stand in dread of dampness, and for this reason spontane- ous combustion will arise in the last place one would expect to find it, namely, a collection of wet rags, or sometimes in damp excelsior which has been left in a cellar. Of course, kerosene oil and cleaning oils should be kept in metal cans, away from heat. Equally of course, gasolene, benzine, naphtha, alcohol, and other highly inflammable fluids which enter into the 28 FIRE PREVENTION domestic economy, should be handled with the greatest care. This is by no means the case in practice, however. Cleaning and dyeing establish- ments use great quantities of fluids of this nature, and though they may keep their main supply in proper receptacles, it is frequently the case that from twenty to thirty gallons will be exposed to the air in large cleaning machines. Gasolene is- ex- tremely volatile and evaporates rapidly, and the gas from it is many times more dangerous than gunpow- der. The Rochester Chamber of Commerce mentions a case which well illustrates the danger of these highly inflammable liquids in the home. In this in- stance, a woman poured a quart of gasolene into a marble wash-bowl and placed a silk waist in it. She closed the door and returned to the room in about ten minutes. Then she rubbed the silk be- tween her hands. This generated sufficient elec- tricity to cause a spark; the gasolene exploded, the house was burned down and the woman was killed. There have been many cases in which the house- wife has used rags saturated with gasolene mixture in cleaning a kitchen stove. These rags have been thrown under the sink, as a safe and handy place. As a matter of fact, it is the most dangerous of FIRE IN THE DWELLING 29 places. Perhaps in the middle of the night a few drops of water may fall upon the rags from a leaky or sweating pipe, dampening them and forming a highly explosive gas. Hundreds upon hundreds of fires in houses have been caused in this simple way to the astonishment of the householder. The relative part played in the fire loss by various causes already mentioned may be seen by an exami- nation of some of the statistics of the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Richmond in the city of New York for the year 1911. The principal causes of fires in these three boroughs, as reported by the Division of the Fire Marshal of the New York Fire Department, and the number of fires attributed to them were as follows : Carelessness with lighted matches 1,366 Children playing with matches 354 Carelessness with lighted cigars or cigarettes 970 Carelessness with candles 409 Carelessness with gas lights, ranges, radiators, etc. 530 Overheated stoves, stovepipes, etc 446 Chimney fires 5^9 Bonfires, brush fires, etc 698 In addition to these, other causes which were at the root of many fires were : Spontaneous combustion of oily waste 102 Lamps, kerosene, gasolene, etc 117 Electric wires, defective insulation 231 Vapour of benzine, gasolene, etc., igniting 209 30 FIRE PREVENTION These figures indicate some of the most prevalent causes out of 10,069 fires which occurred. In fires resulting from carelessness with matches alone the estimated loss was $278,322. Perhaps there is no greater single menace than that of rubbish. Its disposal in many houses and in most small towns is totally improper and inade- quate. If collected in any quantity, it is always a source of anxiety to those who know its possi- bilities. Large cities are apt to be much better provided with rubbish disposal systems than their smaller sisters. But towns and villages which de- sire to be progressive should look to this matter as one of prime importance. A good plan is to have a brick furnace to burn waste paper and rub- bish. Recently the Chief Deputy Fire Marshal of the State of Nebraska, Mr. C. A. Randell, has de- scribed such a refuse furnace (" The American City"). " Since taking charge of the State Fire Commis- sion of Nebraska," he says, " I have discovered that a large number of fires are caused by the burn- ing of trash, paper and other combustible mate- rial in the streets and in the alleys. In some towns merchants use a burner made of wire fenc- FIRE IN THE DWELLING 31 ing. They fill the burner with paper and other combustible material, touch a match to it and it will burn and blow around the streets and alleys, into areaways and scatter the debris all around. They seem to think when they burn this material in the wire, that they are safe-guarding the property of the town, but in fact it is absolutely dangerous. Others use an old deserted boiler; the fire causes a draft, the wind whips around the receptacle and the paper and other material contained in it blows all over the town. That too is dangerous. I found in one place one of these old boilers standing on end with paper and trash burning in it right beside a high board fence, and within six feet of a little wooden shed with a tank containing from fifty to one hundred gallons of gasolene. The door of the shed was open. " When I called the merchant's attention to the dangerous object, he informed me that he had been doing this for some time and had never had a fire, notwithstanding the fact that the fence was charred and the shed was blackened by the smoke from the fire. Recently, while making an inspection of a city of 2,500 inhabitants, under weather conditions which made everything as dry as it could possibly be, and while the wind was blowing hot and dry 32 FIRE PREVENTION from the south, I found that business being a little dull, the business men were putting in their time burning their trash on the streets, alleys, and in the yards, and I caused several fires to be extinguished. " In one of the towns which I recently inspected, I found that they had made provision for the burn- ing of rubbish and waste by compelling the mer- chants and business men to provide brick or con- crete receptacles in which to burn it. This type of receptacle is the best thing of the kind that I have ever seen, and it is very inexpensive to construct. Several of the merchants on a block go in together and build this brick furnace at the back of some lot as far as possible from any building. The dimensions of this furnace are as follows: 4 feet wide, 4 feet high, 4 feet long, with walls 8 inches thick. The chimney on the rear of one end is about 2j^ or 3 feet high. The opening into the chimney has a wire screen at the exit of the oven, where the smoke enters the chimney, so that no paper or anything that is burning can pass through. The entire top of the furnace is covered by a gal- vanised iron cover. There should be a grate pro- vided where the waste is to be laid, at least one foot from the ground. This can be made out of old tire iron or any other pieces of iron placed closely FIRE IN THE DWELLING 33 enough together to support the material. I was in- formed that this furnace, all complete, cost the busi- ness men who constructed it about $35, and as several contributed to its construction it did not cost any one of them over $5 and reduced the possi- bility of a fire from this source in that town to a minimum." Now, as to the manner of the treatment of fire in the house, if one does break out in spite of all precautions. Every house should be provided with a sufficient number of chemical fire extinguishers, the location of which should be known to all the inmates and should be unchanging. Such an extinguisher is exceedingly handy and inexpensive. Its construc- tion is very simple. The usual type consists merely of a metal tank which is capable of sustaining high internal pressure* The usual size is filled with two and one-half gallons of water mixed with one and one-half pounds of bicarbonate of soda. At the top of the extinguisher there is a bottle containing about four ounces of sulphuric acid, preserved from evapo- ration by a porcelain or leaden stopper. The appa- ratus is operated by turning it upside down, a move- ment which releases the sulphuric acid into the solu- tion of water and bicarbonate of soda. Thereby a rapidly expanding gas is generated which forces the 34 FIRE PREVENTION liquid at good pressure out of the receptacle through a hose and nozzle. Although there is some vari- ation in individual makes, of which seventeen are approved by the National Board of Fire Under- writers, the average throws a stream which is about one-eighth inch in diameter at the nozzle and has a range of about twenty-five to thirty-five feet This is sufficient to extinguish a small blaze. An extinguisher should be kept upon each floor of a house and about one to every one thousand feet of floor space in a large building. As a matter of fact, the old-fashioned pail of water will immediately extinguish a small fire, unless it be of an oily nature, if it be promptly brought into use. The objection to pails, however, is that they are carelessly maintained and are often found half empty from evaporation when they are most needed. Moreover, they are not decorative, and a row of red buckets labelled " Fire " in large let- ters does not lend itself to the artistic scheme of most private houses. The chemical extinguisher has an additional advantage over the water pail, in the greater accuracy with which its contents can be directed. If a fire is of an oily nature quick action with a blanket or heavy cloth will usually smother it, and FIRE IN THE DWELLING 35 the same extinguishing means is to be recommended for explosions of lamps. Remember that the cru- cial point with every fire is its beginning. There is no cause for alarm simply because there is a hot spurt of flame and a cloud of smoke. A little cool commonsense, combined with prompt execution, will end the matter before it has attained any serious proportions. A growing practice in private houses, especially of the more pretentious sort, is to install a stand pipe with a hose connection, which may be con- cealed in a closet or other inconspicuous place. This is an excellent measure, as a good stream of water will frequently do the required work, if there should be an accident which puts the chemical extinguisher out of service, or if it is exhausted. If such a stand pipe and hose is part of your house equipment, see that it is of an approved type and that fire hose of the best quality is chosen. Inferior hose is always unsatisfactory. Deterioration in the poorer quali- ties more than offsets their cheapness. Fire retardants are now coming into use as fea- tures of construction, but many of them can be used in houses already built and with no little satisfac- tion. Among them may be mentioned wired-glass in metal frames. This is slightly more expensive 36 FIRE PREVENTION than ordinary window glass, but infinitely more de- sirable from the fire protection standpoint. Even if this glass cracks, the wires around which it is fused hold it in place. Of course, as in the case with fire-pails, this type of window glass is shunned on account of its appearance. It certainly is utili- tarian rather than ornamental, but could well be installed in portions of the house which do not call for especial beauty, such as basements, kitchens, laundries, etc. These very places are frequently those in which the danger of fire is greatest. If a dwelling be sufficiently large and expensive to have an elevator, or if the building in question is an apart- ment house in which an elevator is installed, much attention should be given to the shaft, as this point is one of especial danger in spreading flames. Shafts and halls act as flues unless cut off from direct con- nection by wired glass set in metal frames or by thoroughly fireproof casings. If the safety meas- ure of enclosing the openings is adopted, it should be carried out thoroughly, leaving no place for air leakage. There are on the market a number of paints of fire retardant nature. They are in no sense fire- proof, but are greatly to be preferred to varnish, oiling, shellac, or even ordinary paints, from the Interior of Gutted Equitable Building Broadway and Cedar Street front. FIRE IN THE DWELLING 37 standpoint of fire prevention. These paints, for- tunately, are applicable to interior use, and they can well be applied to the parts of the dwelling in which work is done, as well as to the living rooms. For cellars and outbuildings, properly mixed white- wash falls under the head of a fire retardant, and a formula which has been recommended by the Light- house Board of the United States Treasury Depart- ment might well be adopted. It is as follows: " Slake half a bushel of unslaked lime with boil- ing water; keep it covered during the process. Strain it and add a packet of salt, dissolved in warm water; three pounds of ground rice, put in boiling water and stirred to a thin paste; one-half pound powdered Spanish whiting and a pound of clear glue, dissolved in hot water. Mix these well to- gether and let the mixture stand for several days. Keep the wash thus prepared in a kettle or porta- ble furnace, and when used put it on as hot as pos- sible with painters' or whitewash brushes." CHAPTER II FURTHER MEASURES FOR PROTECTION IN THE HOUSE THE DEPARTMENT OF A SMALL TOWN As a protection and a measure to offset fire loss, means of quick communication with the local fire department are essential. The telephone has in many instances taken the place of other methods of notifying the department of fire, but although the central and number of fire headquarters should be posted at the head of the list in each house which possesses a telephone, it is frequently well to supple- ment the instrument by a special fire alarm. Per- sons who constantly use the telephone in the course of daily life are often apt to forget it in the moment of excitement when fire breaks out, whereas a spe- cial apparatus connected in the mind solely with the notification of fire is promptly thought of. What- ever apparatus is employed to communicate with the department, the essential thing is to use it promptly. Home apparatus of one kind or an- other, extinguishers, hose, buckets or what not, may 38 DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 39 and, as has been said, do serve the purpose, but they should not be considered a sole reliance, and the moment a fire is discovered, the department whose business it is to extinguish it should be notified. Every householder should, of course, know the location of the nearest public fire alarm box and its method of operation. There are several types of excellent boxes in which simplicity is the greatest virtue. The antiquated key box is fortunately rap- idly disappearing, though many are still in use and even in large cities, as, for instance, in parts of Brooklyn, some are to be found. This relic of the dark ages of fire-fighting should be extirpated with all possible speed, for it is a most foolish waste of valuable seconds to be forced to rush about your own house looking for the desired- key, or more fre- quently to run to a neighbour's or to the corner store in order to obtain it. Alarm boxes which have proved highly satisfactory are those which re- quire only the turning of a handle to open the out- side door, and then the pulling down of a conven- ient hook to send in the alarm. This is the type in use in most of our large cities and many of the smaller communities. It is the duty of the municipality or the village to see that proper alarm systems are provided. It 40 FIRE PREVENTION is the business of the citizen, however, when his house is on fire to give an alarm by any and every means at his disposal. As in most matters con- nected with extinguishing fires the motto here is, " Do Not Wait." Departments, large or small, are handicapped greatly by the tendency of the householder or the employee to procrastinate, and by his failure to turn in a prompt alarm. Instances of the fatal and unfortunate results of this habit can be multiplied without end. To cite but one such glaring instance at the fire which burned out the building of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, at No. 1 20 Broadway, New York, in January, 1912, employees at the building failed to turn in any alarm, or to allow one to be turned in, until the fire had been burning for a period of at least fifteen minutes. Automatic alarms within a house are not fre- quently found, although some city residences of the higher class and some large country houses have been fitted with thermostats and special automatic systems whereby increased protection is secured. This type of alarm is of great value and may be applied with particular aptness to larger buildings, such as stores, lofts, theatres and hotels. Taking for granted, then, that the householder has done all that may properly be required of him EPARTMENT OF A TOWN 41 for the purpose of protecting his life and property, let us now see what should be done by the depart- ment of the community in which he lives to assist him in this cause. Men have been fighting fire ever since they learned to dwell in organised communi- ties, and almost since they discovered the use of this indispensable element. The history of civil- ised ages is marked with many a lurid spot when man's servant has broken its bonds and become man's master, for the time being at least. Con- flagrations have, as is well known, swept many great cities all down the ages. London, for instance, has been again and again laid waste, notably in the years 798, 982, 1087, 1132, 1212, and 1666, the last date being that of the so-called " Great Fire," which burned for four days and caused enormous loss of life and property. Every part of England has suffered similar disasters, different only in de- gree, and the cities of other countries have also been heavy sufferers. Thus, Berlin was destroyed in 1405; while Rome, Moscow, Lisbon and Venice, as well as Copenhagen, have had enormous and disas- trous fires. Constantinople has suffered perhaps more frequently than any other city within the Euro- pean zone ; it has been in large part destroyed twelve times since 1792. 42 FIRE PREVENTION In our own country, the memory of great confla- grations is still fresh. The great fires which de- stroyed Chicago in 1871 and Boston in 1872; those which burned large areas in New York in 1835 anc ^ 1856; the San Francisco fire, following the earth- quake, and that of Baltimore, are remembered as national calamities. Charleston, S. C. ; Pittsburg, Savannah, Philadelphia, Portland, Maine, and Chelsea, Mass., have likewise been sufferers. That civilised communities should endeavour to combat this highly destructive force was, of course, natural. The means by which they have combated it have undergone a radical evolution, especially within the last century, and still more so within the last three or four decades. To take Philadelphia as an example; in the early part of the eighteenth century, when the town had some seven hundred dwelling houses, the only appliances for extinguish- ing fires were the bucket, the ladder, and the hook for the purpose of pulling down buildings. In 1719 an English fire engine was purchased for fifty pounds, this sum having been obtained by a series of fines which were levied for a number of breaches of law. In 1735 Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter on this subject, which was published and ran as follows: DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 4 3 " In the first place, as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, I would advise how they suffer living brandsends or coals in a full shovel to be carried out of one room into another or up and down stairs unless in a warming pan and shut, for scraps of fire may fly into chinks and make no ap- pearance until mid-night, when your stairs being in flames, you may be forced, as I once was, to leap out of your windows and hazard your necks to avoid being over-roasted." Poor Richard went on to give some very whole- some advice, saying that if chimneys were more frequently and more carefully cleaned some fires might thereby be prevented. " I have known fire chimneys to burn most furi- ously a few days after they are swept," he wrote, "people in confidence that they are clean, making large fires. Everybody among us is allowed to sweep chimneys that please to undertake that busi- ness, and if that chimney fires through fault of the sweep the owner pays the fine and the sweep goes free. This thing is not right. Those who under- take the sweeping of the chimneys and employ ser- vants for that purpose ought to be licensed by the Mayor and if any chimney fires and flames out fifteen days after sweeping, the fine should be paid 44 FIRE PREVENTION by the sweep, for it is his fault. We have at pres- ent got engines enough in the town, but I question whether in many parts of the town water enough can be had to keep them going an hour together. It seems to me some public water works are wanting, but that I sumbit to better judgment." This interest of Franklin in the subject of fire probably led to the founding of the Union Fire Company in 1736, of which the philosopher him- self and four others were the leading members. Each of them furnished at his own expense six leather buckets and two stout linen bags, which he was supposed to bring to every fire. The buckets were, of course, for the purpose of throwing water on the flames, and the bags were intended to be used as receptacles for property and valuables. The members had an agreement to attend any place from which an alarm came, with their extensive ap- paratus. There seems to have been some degree of organisation in this primitive fire department, for regular tasks were assigned to certain members, such as watching houses that were burning against theft, looking after the use of water, etc. When an alarm came in, lights were placed in the windows of those members' houses which were near the scene of the blaze, in order to render assistance to the DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 45 others who were running up. Thirty members com- posed the organisation, which held eight annual meetings. This plan was adopted by all of the fire companies in the city, and used, with modifications, until the Revolutionary War was long a thing of the past. Franklin's company existed for more than eighty-four years. Even in those early days Europe appears to have had the supremacy over America in matters of con- struction, which was noted in a previous chapter. Franklin once wrote on this subject from London: " It appears to me of great importance to build our dwelling houses, if we can, in a manner more secure from danger by fire. We scarcely ever hear of fire in Paris. When I was there, I took par- ticular notice of the construction of their houses, and I did not see that one of them could well be burned. The roofs are of slate or tile, the walls are stone, the walls generally lined with stucco or plaster instead of wainscot. The floors of stucco or of those square tiles burned brown, or of flag- stone or of marble. The stairs too at Paris are either stone or brick, with only a wooden edge or corner for the step, so that on the whole, though the Parisians commonly burn wood in their chimneys, a more dangerous kind of fuel than that used here, 46 FIRE PREVENTION yet their houses escape extremely well, as there is little in a room that can be consumed by fire except the furniture, whereas in London perhaps scarcely a year passes in which half a million of property and many lives are not lost by this destructive ele- ment. Of late, indeed, they begin here to leave off wainscoting their rooms, and instead of it cover the walls with stucco, often formed into panels like wainscot which, being painted, is very strong and warm. Stone staircases, too, with iron rails, grow more and more into fashion here." In many towns and villages, volunteer fire depart- ments have long been a familiar part of the com- munity life. These have usually been formed by persons who were actuated by two motives the de- sire to be of service and to protect their own and others' property, and the love of excitement. Every- one is familiar with the popular characterisation of the volunteer fire department which has become a moss-grown subject for jest in comic supplements and periodicals. If one were to judge by these jesting references alone, the volunteer fire depart- ment would be merely an excuse for an annual parade in gaudy uniforms, of which the red flannel shirt is an indispensable portion, and the annual or semi-annual firemen's ball, which is the most excit- DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 47 ing event for all the village swains and eligible young folk. It is too true that this condition is frequently that which is found, for volunteer departments often become demoralised. The members, filled with en- thusiasm at first, soon tire of the exertion and expo- sure which is required by attendance at all the fires in their neighbourhood, and after the first few months more and more of them fail to turn out when the alarm rings or the whistle blows. But this is by no means a universal condition. When it does exist it can be remedied very largely by tactful adminis- tration on the part of the local chief. He must be a man of real ability and a natural leader. If he has the requisite qualifications, he can soon increase the flagging spirits of his organisation by holding meetings at which fire-fighting problems are dis- cussed in an interesting and up-to-date way, the ad- vice of experts given and a spirit of pride in the efficiency and record of the organisation instilled. A considerably brighter future for the volunteer department, or the pay department, of a small town of from eight to ten thousand inhabitants, for in- stance, has been predicted with the improvement of motor apparatus. Some of the types of power- driven fire-fighting machines which are now to be had, seem well fitted for service in a community of 48 FIRE PREVENTION this kind, although I believe we should not supplant the horse too hastily. The interest which is aroused by keeping everything up to date and by an endeav- our to establish a high record is at any rate a great incentive to energetic work. The leather hose, like the red shirt of the volunteer departments of old, is no longer a part of the business of fire-fighting, and when the falling cost of really effective machines and proper equipment brings them within the range of most small town departments, outworn methods should not be tolerated. The upkeep of motor ap- paratus is certainly far less than that of horse- drawn apparatus, and the difference is so great that the better type in a few years will pay for its higher initial cost. An increasingly popular outfit for a large town or small city consists in a combination chemical en- gine and hose-wagon, motor-driven, which will carry tanks of chemical fluid, together with a thou- sand feet of 2 y 2 -inch hose. This will serve as a still alarm apparatus, to be the first on the spot. It may well be backed up by an automobile pumping engine of from 500 to 800 gallons capacity which will carry a thousand feet of 2j4-inch hose. This piece of apparatus should carry axes, small extin- guishers, fire hooks, extra nozzles, etc. The hook and ladder for such a department may also be u *5b 11 I . 1 1 3 -g 'J i *5 * . DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 49 driven by gasolene and should have ladders of vari- ous lengths, with a maximum of fifty-five feet, to- gether with battering-rams, crowbars and the other utensils which are properly carried on a hook and ladder or truck. Again let me counsel caution in adopting motor apparatus too speedily. It is well to have in reserve at any rate a piece of horse-drawn apparatus to fall back on in case of any disarrange- ment of those employing newer motive power. Quick service, an essential in any department, is the chief merit of motor apparatus, which can be started more quickly than that of the old type, and driven a great deal more quickly even under un- favourable conditions of streets and roads. In smaller places, the chemical engine will frequently answer all the needs. That this apparatus works well in practice in a small community has often been demonstrated, notably in the department of Saskatoon, in the Prov- ince of Saskatchewan, Canada. This Canadian town, which in 1903 had but three hundred in- habitants, was satisfied at first with a remarkably primitive fire engine, drawn by two oxen, but as the place grew this method of extinguishing fires was found a trifle antiquated, and now that the city numbers about twenty thousand, a combination piece of motor apparatus is in use. CHAPTER III DEPARTMENT OF A SMALL TOWN Continued WHEN a town has attained a sufficient size to be incorporated as a city it should organise a paid fire department as one of the first recognitions of its improved condition. Before this point has been reached, however, much may be done to protect lives and property by means of a volunteer fire depart- ment. Volunteer departments should not be con- sidered as jokes, as I have already said. Those who enter them should take the matter seriously and remember above all things their pledge to protect the lives and property of their neighbours and them- selves. They should regard fire-fighting as a seri- ous undertaking and remember that for their own sake as well as for others, study and training are essential. A proper alarm system is a prime requisite for the volunteer department. This is one of the mat- ters which has been sadly neglected in the past. The antiquated system of ringing an alarm when fire is discovered, to summon the members of the 50 DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 51 department to the local headquarters or fire house, from which they can then run to the fire, guided by smoke or light from the flames, is as much a thing of the past as the red shirt or leather hose. There is no reason why a system of simple box alarms should not be installed in the small town as well as in cities ; then, when an alarm is turned in, the mem- bers of the department will be able to locate the fire without running first to headquarters to find its location. The loss of precious moments from this cause can be prevented whether boxes are used for sending in the alarm or not, by having the town divided into districts or sections, each of which has a corre- sponding number which may be sounded on the alarm bell or siren whistle. By this means, as soon as the bell rings or whistle blows, the fire-fighters know the location and can respond to it at once. At headquarters or at the engine houses two men should always be on duty, night and day. There are mem- bers of nearly every volunteer department who are so situated that they will be glad of a comfortable place to sleep, at no cost to themselves. The house must be kept up in any case and it will cost the town no more to have two of its firemen sleep there. Of course, if motor apparatus is used, one 52 FIRE PREVENTION of these men, or preferably both, must understand how to operate it, while, if the apparatus is horse- drawn, they must be responsible and capable enough to drive it. Suppose, then, that this plan is followed. What happens when an alarm comes in, let us say, at night? First the alarm bell or whistle is sounded, giving the number of the district in which the fire has been located either because a box has been "pulled" or a watchman stationed in the familiar watch-tower has seen smoke or flames there. Next, the men stationed in quarters at once drive the ap- paratus to the proper district. Thirdly, while they are doing this, the other members of the depart- ment are responding as fast as possible, knowing the approximate location of the blaze. How much better than the old wild dash to quarters by the entire department followed by another run to the scene of action guided only by the light of the blaze itself. What the apparatus for such a small town should be is hard to decide, by rule. The geography, topography, character of buildings, and other local circumstances make the requirements different for each town or village. For these reasons it must be left to the decision of the local experts whether DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 53 they have a steamer, a chemical engine, a truck or all three, and how many of each type of apparatus are needed. Whatever type is chosen should be of the best quality, however, and fully equipped with the proper tools and implements. If a steamer is used, it should ordinarily be a small one, light enough to be drawn by two horses. Such an en- gine should have a capacity of about 350 gallons to the minute. In many of our small towns there is a plentiful water supply obtained from surround- ing high land and entering the town, therefore, with a good gravity pressure. Places thus fortunately provided can get along well without a pumping en- gine. For them the chemical engine in its various forms is an excellent machine. If the gravity pres- sure is to be relied on for streams of water, how- ever, care must be taken to make sure that the mains are of sufficient size to allow an ample supply. Drills and inspections should be frequent and thorough in every volunteer department, to teach the members to take care of themselves as well as of others when the emergency arises. There is a distressingly long death and accident list each year among volunteer firemen who, by the way, seldom lack bravery simply because they are ignorant of their calling and do not know how to take proper 54 FIRE PREVENTION measures for self-protection. An instance of this sort of thing occurred a year or so ago in West- chester County in this State. Fire broke out in a frame house and when the firemen arrived, they found the flames well under way. They decided to follow a plan which is a favourite among volunteer companies when they face a blaze that seems already beyond the remedy of available water, namely, to pull down the entire front of the house. Consequently a hook at the end of a rope was attached to a window frame or opening high in the front wall and the members of the department took hold with a will and pro- ceeded to pull out the whole front of the building. They did not know what a dangerous undertaking that was, apparently, for they hauled it over on top of themselves with the result that two or three were killed and many injured. This idea of tearing down buildings as a means of stopping fire is one which has come down to us from very early times and which still persists more or less even among the best trained and most elabo- rate departments, in the use of explosives to cre- ate an immune zone in the path of conflagrations. But, of course, the trend of development has been in the direction of less destructive methods of van- DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 55 quishing the flames. Strides in this direction have been enormous and to those who are familiar with the perfected and effective apparatus of the present it seems little short of marvellous that the men of old could have made any headway at all against the enemy with their primitive weapons. Some of these were indeed curious. A fire wheel which was equipped with a force pump is believed to have been invented in the year 150 B. C., and in the first century a machine came into use which seems to have been operated with hand levers. Bombs, containing water, formed another item of old-time equipment. They were hollow globes of clay which had gunpowder in one compartment, to which a fuse was attached. When used at a fire they were thrown into the midst of the flames just as the hand grenades of a few decades ago were thrown, and then, when the explosion occurred, the water was showered over some of the burning area. A lever engine or pump which was really practi- cable was invented by a resident of Nuremburg, Germany, in 1657. This machine was, of course, worked by hand power, and when twenty-five or thirty men manned the levers it could throw a stream of water to a height of about eighty feet. Im- provements on this machine led to gradually pro- 5 6 FIRE PREVENTION gressive types, and finally to the lever pump which worked something like the old form of railroad hand car and persisted down to the time of the steam fire engine, introduced in the last century. Until the end of the seventeenth century squirts and water guns were in quite general use and their feeble efforts against a good hot fire are not hard to imagine. Antiquated as these crude implements for fire- fighting seem to our modern way of thinking, they are only different in degree from the methods which have prevailed in many a small town or village until very recent years. It would be just as foolish to return to them now as to go on with a system of improper drilling, imperfect machinery, the use of which the members of the department do not fully know, and an indiscriminate, scatter-brained method of attacking fires when they are reached. Those who have made no study of the small town departments would be astonished to learn the lack of knowledge of the fire hazard and the methods of fire-fighting which some of them display. Not long ago some residents of a small town which shall be nameless, sought my advice about buying a truck. They wanted to know what kind of a truck they should purchase, what length of ladders it should have, how heavy it should be, how much it would DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 57 cost and so forth. I asked them what pieces of apparatus they already had. " Why, we haven't any," they told me. And they seemed surprised when I pointed out that it would be rather hard to put out a fire with an unaided hook and ladder. On another occasion I was called down to a small place near New York to inspect the fire de- partment. I found that it consisted of a gasolene pumping engine. That was well enough as far as it went, though I am inclined to suspend judgment on this type of apparatus until it has been subjected to further tests, but I happened to notice that this particular engine was connected to the floor of the fire house. Naturally I asked the chief what the idea of that was. He explained that whenever there was a fire the engine was simply left in the house and lines of hose were stretched from there to the scene of the blaze. I inquired about the procedure in case the fire happened to be in the end of town farthest from the house, and he then told me that they had another connection there to which they could attach the engine and again stretch hose from that point to the scene of trouble. I left that town wondering why it had not been entirely con- sumed long ago. Assuming that a town wants to cast off all such 58 FIRE PREVENTION moss-grown methods and have as up-to-date a de- partment as its resources will permit, what shall it do to attain its desire? I will first speak of the matter of an alarm system. Little need be said about this if it depends on a watchman who looks over the town from a tower or other point of van- tage. Alarm boxes are infinitely to be preferred to this plan. The boxes should be of the keyless type, require ing but two operations at most to send in an alarm. They should be conspicuously painted and the poles on which they are mounted should be painted in bright colours as well. This has been done in Los Angeles, Cal., where alternate stripes of red and white make the box poles unmistakable. Red lights should mark box location at night. No definite rules can be laid down for the locations of boxes, as local conditions of necessity govern this matter. But in general not more than five hundred feet should have to be traversed to reach a box in a mercantile or manufacturing district, while eight hundred feet should be the maximum for the residential and out- lying districts. Boxes should not be placed inside buildings except of course special building boxes not usually found in small towns, and even they are more prop- DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 59 erly placed on the outer walls of buildings in con- venient locations. Boxes should not be placed on the same poles that carry wires of high-potential system circuits and not more than twenty should be on a single circuit. Wires should have an insulating cover of a type approved by proper authority. In places usually damp or in conduits this should be of rubber not less than 3-64 of an inch thick and covered with a strong braid. For dry places and open work it should be a filled braid at least 1-32 of an inch thick and of the same character for use in moulding or tubing. Overhead wires should have a conductivity equal to No. 10 B. & S. galvanised iron and a tensile strength equivalent to No. 10 hard drawn copper, where single wires are used, and No. 14 of the same material in the case of a cable. They should be supported entirely on porcelain or glass insu- lators, at least every one hundred and fifty feet, and if they must be placed on the same poles as electric light and power wires, contact with these should be carefully guarded against. If under- ground wires are used no cable should be installed in the same duct with any other circuit nor in the same manhole with high potential circuits. 60 FIRE PREVENTION Wires and cables within fire houses and other buildings should be supported in conduits or other non-combustible and non-absorbtive material and should not come in contact with other material than the designed supports and instruments. The bat- teries of such a system should be closed circuit pri- mary or storage batteries and should be housed in a building preferably under municipal control and in a room which is not subject to great changes of temperature. They should not be in the same building with the local telephone office. Storage batteries are not to be recommended unless the source of the charging current and proper mainte- nance is reliable. If they are used, a duplicate set should be provided, each set sufficient to run the en- tire system for sixty hours. In the fire houses an efficient form of register should be provided to record all alarms. A whistle blowing machine or bell striker may be used to give the outside alarms. If necessary there may, of course, be more than one of these. At any rate the location of such an alarm should be such that the call members of the department can readily hear it. In addition, tappers with gongs, on which all the alarms should be struck, should be installed in the DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 61 homes of the chief, engineers or other leading mem- bers of the department. These tappers ought not to be on the same circuits as the boxes. One of the most important things in connection with such a system is proper maintenance. For this purpose tests should be made daily; better still, twice daily. The purpose of the system is defeated if it is not in working order when a fire really oc- curs and these daily tests should be supplemented by inspections of the battery equipment and record- ing machines at least once every week. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on this mat- ter of proper inspection of signalling systems and of all the other factors of the department which are mechanical. No system yet devised is sufficiently automatic to dispense with the necessity of periodic overhauling and careful scrutiny. This supervision should be in charge of a responsible person and the local chief should hold himself accountable for it. The municipal authorities should be in harmony with the man in charge, and the department and these authorities should work in harmony for the upbuilding of an efficient force, its preservation and improvement. Too much care cannot be taken and there is no branch of village, town or city life in which the proverbial " stitch in time " has more 62 FIRE PREVENTION direct bearing than in the fire department. Always ready, always in order, are the prime requisites. One of the most important factors in any fire de- partment is the hose. Inferior or imperfect hose at once sets at naught the efforts of the fire-fighters and discounts any other points of merit, such as promptness, training or special aptitude which the department may possess. It is, therefore, essential that hose of the proper character be purchased and that it receive careful attention during its life in the department. This is a subject of perhaps special weight in the small department or volunteer depart- ment, because the comparative infrequency of fires opens the way to special dangers in deterioration and unfitness of hose. Only hose which fulfils the requirements of the competent authorities should be purchased. For the small town 2 J^ -inch hose is perhaps preferable. This term of measurement refers, of course, to in- ternal diameter. A very satisfactory type is that made from cotton fabric lined with rubber. The fabric should be of even and firm texture and free from all imperfections and defects save those slight injuries which are incident to the most careful man- ufacture. The yarn from which it is woven should be made from selected long-staple cotton. No. 12 DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 63 yarn should have a strength of not less than eighty pounds. This fabric may be of but one thickness, called single jacket, or it may be of two or three jackets or plies. The two-jacket type is perhaps the most serviceable for the average department of the char- acter now under discussion. A fifty-foot length of this hose if 2 J^ -inch, should weigh not more than sixty pounds with couplings. The rubber lining of hose of this character should contain not less than 40 per cent, of pure rubber, new and not deresin- ised. This lining must, of course, be well cemented to the jacket in a way which will give durability and as little corrugation as possible. Couplings should be of the expanding ring pat- tern and should be made of an alloy of copper, tin and zinc. The weight for 2^2 -inch diameter should not be less than 5J4 pounds. They ought to have a rubber gasket of the best quality and rubber wash- ers to absolutely prevent the wetting and consequent rotting of the ends of the cotton fabric of the hose. Hose should be flexible and easily coiled. It must be strong, however. Two-jacket hose should withstand a pressure of at least three hundred pounds to the square inch and be capable of with- standing considerably more. A reasonable amount 64 FIRE PREVENTION of stretch in woven hose is desirable, but too much is a sign of weakness and should be avoided. The amount of elongation under pressure of three hun- dred pounds should not exceed thirty-six inches in fifty feet in the type of hose of which I have been speaking. Twist is likewise an indication of weak- ness, usually of improper weaving, and I would not recommend hose that showed much twist under one hundred pounds pressure or more than one turn in fifty feet under three hundred pounds pressure. In all cases the twist ought to be in a direction which will tend to tighten rather than loosen the couplings. Rrbber hose and rubber-lined cotton duck hose are also extensively used. The latter does not stretch or twist quite so easily as that of cotton fabric, but on the whole it is not so serviceable. Whatever the kind of hose used, however, one pro- vision should be insisted on; namely, that the name of the maker and the year and month of manufac- ture be stamped in indelible letters on each length near the couplings. The couplings as well should bear similar markings so that the age of any part of the equipment may be told at a glance. It has been the practise to use 2 J^ -inch couplings on 3-inch hose and 3-inch couplings on 3^ -inch hose. This is a bad plan and causes the loss of much pres- DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 65 sure through friction. This is an additional argu- ment for the use of standard couplings. The adop- tion of a standard coupling is a matter that I re- gard as of high importance. To the layman it may seem a mere minor detail, but one of the most short- sighted things which can be done by a fire depart- ment is to retain couplings which will not connect with those of its neighbours. This is true of the great city as well as of the hamlet and there have been a number of instances in my own experience where the lack of interchangeable couplings has caused serious inconvenience and delay. This was the case at the Baltimore fire. The engines from the New York department which were sent to help fight the conflagration found that they could not connect with the hydrants in use in the Maryland city, and the hose which came from New York could not be used to supplement that of the Baltimore department, except, of course, by the at- tachment of converters, which led to delay and mini- mised the help that might have been rendered. For- tunately the station which most of the New YorK apparatus took was not far from a waterway and they were able to stretch their hose and get water by suction. Philadelphia does not use the same coupling 66 FIRE PREVENTION standard as New York. In case of a great fire in either city, therefore, in which help was called for from the other, the same condition would prevail as was found at Baltimore, and the assistance which might otherwise prove the turning point in the bat- tle would be lost or interfered with to a serious extent. This difference in the seemingly small mat- ter of couplings is very prevalent among small towns, and as they often stand in special need of assistance from their neighbours, it is particularly unfortunate for them. The specifications which make up the national standard coupling have now been approved by the following associations, among others, interested in fire prevention : The American Public Works Asso- ciation; American Society of Municipal Improve- ments; American Waterworks Association; Inter- national Association of Fire Engineers; League of American Municipalities; Minnesota State Fire- men's Association; National Board of Fire Under- writers; National Fire Protection Association; Na- tional Firemen's Association; New England Water- works Association; North Carolina State Firemen's Association; Pennsylvania Waterworks Associa- tion; Virginia State Firemen's Association. DEPARTMENT OF A TOWN 67 These specifications are as follows: Inside diameter of hose in inches.. 2,y 2 in. 3 in. $y 2 in 4% in. Number of threads per inch j l / 2 66 4 MALE COUPLINGS Outside diameter of thread FINISHED 3-i/i6in. 3^ in. 4% in. 5^ in. Diameter at root of thread.2.8715 in. 3.3/63 in. 4.0013 in. 5.39/0 in. Clearance between Male and Female threads. . . . .03 in. .03 in. .03 in. .05 in. Total length of threaded end I in. i^in i^in. i^ in. The above to be of the sixty degree V-thread pat- tern, with i-ioo inch cut off the top of thread and i-ioo inch left in the bottom of the valley in 2^- inch, 3-inch, and 3^2-inch couplings, and 2-100 inch in like manner for the 4J^-inch couplings and with %-inch blank end on male part of coupling in each case. Female ends to be cut ^4-inch blank end on male part of coupling in each case. Female ends to be cut %-inch shorter for endwise clearance. They should also be bored out .03 inch larger in the 2^2-inch, 3-inch and 3>i-mch sizes, and .05 inch larger in the 4J^-inch size in order to make up easily and without jamming or sticking. In towns and cities in which the couplings are not standard they may be converted to this type at a 68 FIRE PREVENTION comparatively low cost. There is a special device for replacing hydrant nipples with the standard type or they may be made to serve by the use of adapters. Such adapters may also be fitted easily to fire-engine nipples and may be carried on hose wagons to over- ^come the obstacle of couplings not yet converted. As the old hose wears out new equipment should be specifically ordered with the National Standard threads and in this way the change may conveniently be effected. CHAPTER IV THE PROTECTION OF FACTORIES, LOFT BUILDINGS, AND OTHER LARGE STRUCTURES IN the present era of constant business growth and an ever-increasing number of buildings devoted to manufacturing, selling, storing and other commer- cial purposes, one of the most important fields of fire protection lies in structures of this general class. Factories, lofts, office buildings and department stores are springing up all over our great country with astonishing rapidity. Some are well built, many are not. Some have installed modern and sensible methods of preventing fire; a very large majority have not. Such structures should be obliged by law to conform to standard regulations of known value in the matter of their fire hazard provisions; I mean of much wider scope than those contained in the average building code. Many of the suggestions which have been made in a previous chapter for the protection of dwelling houses and small buildings apply as well to larger 69 70 FIRE PREVENTION structures. General watchfulness, care in wiring, provisions for alarm and private fire-fighting appa- ratus are all indicated for them as clearly as for the private house or the small tenement. In fact, these things are even more imperative, both on account of the dangerous character of the occupations which are carried on in many of the larger buildings and on account of the greater number of lives and greater value of property which fire in them in- volves. Strangely enough the owners of many such build- ings or their lessees are too short-sighted to per- ceive the immense advantage which a little study and application of the rules of fire protection would be to them. Such men insure, they comply with the law per- haps in the matter of construction, and then they sit back contentedly, feeling that all is well and they have only to attend to the strictly commercial side of their business. This is the sheerest folly. In- surance is an excellent thing, but insurance never makes up for the loss of a thriving business by fire. The value of the physical property may be returned, it is true, but what of the good will, the ability to meet competition and to fill orders? To put it still more materialistically, what about the payment LARGE STRUCTURES 71 of damages for the loss or injury of employees in case the responsibility can be fixed upon the em- ployer? These things are never " covered " by insurance. The truth is so self-evident that it is simply astonish- ing that it is not universally appreciated. And this, too, is merely the practical, business side of the ques- tion. It is the equation in terms of money. There is, of course, another side, that of the obligation, the moral responsibility, which the owner of a build- ing, or the employer of labor has toward his fellow property holders or his workmen. He is neglect- ing his obvious duty to society as well as his selfish interest if he does not see to it that he is not living in a fools' paradise, and that measures have been taken to really protect, as far as may be, his prop- erty and his employees. The question, then, is how shall he do this, what steps shall he take to set his house in order against the fire peril? As every building has different characteristics and presents a different problem it is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules to cover the placing of apparatus, etc., in detail, but the things that should always be done are many and may be defined. Take as an example a factory or a mill. Ideally, 72 FIRE PREVENTION of course, it should be of fireproof construction throughout unburnable. As a matter of fact, un- less it was built in very recent times, and probably not even in that case, it is very far from fireproof. But this does not mean that the fire hazard in it can- not be reduced. In the first place, the danger spots should be looked for. The engine room or boiler room, suggesting waste soaked in oil; the wiring, if electricity is used; the gas, if that is the means of il- lumination; the belting of machinery; the collection of dust or lint on walls and ceilings ; general untidi- ness and uncleanliness, the disposal of ashes and, last, but not least, the smoking habits of the em- ployees. Fire doors and shutters of metal should be in- stalled. These must not be obstructed by the dis- posal of stock and must be closed every night. Fire retardant paint should be used. Safety matches should be absolutely required if the use of matches, is necessary; smoking should be rigorously pro- hibited in all parts of the building. A sufficient number of chemical extinguishers should be placed in conspicuous positions. They should be supple- mented by hose reels or racks at or near standpipes, by ladders, hooks and axes. Elevators should be enclosed with fireproof material, stairways must be LARGE STRUCTURES 73 fireproof, and wire glass windows and metal frames should be installed as protection, both against the spread of fire from within and the contagion of fire from without. Of the valuable sprinkler systems and the vital matter of fire drills I propose to deal in a later chapter, but I may say here that both are of the utmost importance. The next consideration, when these matters of construction and equipment have been attended to, is the organisation of a private fire department. This is an invaluable asset to the factory owner, the tenant in the loft building or anyone else employing labour. Its value lies not merely in the effective safe- guard against fire which it can be made to form, but also in the closer relation between employer and employed which it invariably fosters and the spirit of efficiency and smartness which it instills in the workers. Care and thoughtful planning are essential to the success of such an organisation. In the first place it is well to allow the natural sequence of authority in the routine of every day to prevail in the new work of the fire department. Thus the active resident manager, the superintendent or whoever is in chief authority on the premises under ordinary cir- cumstances, is the logical man to head the fire-fight- 74 FIRE PREVENTION ers. The men will readily obey him and can thus be handled with ease. He should be assisted by his next in rank in the business organisation, by a master mechanic or some one else in a position of administrative dignity among the men. Where the plant is a large one and the force is to be divided into battalions, it is well to have battalion chiefs in addition, who have the same general quali- fications as their superiors and who with profit could be allowed to attain their rank by excellence of ser- vice as captains of companies or squads of men. For the position of captain a man of mechanical ability is to be preferred, especially if he has good control of the men and is accustomed to command. The inner organisation of each company will neces- sarily vary with circumstances, but a typical com- pany would be composed somewhat as follows: Six pipe men whose duty it is to hold and direct the play pipes or nozzles. These men should be se- lected with an eye to their physical strength, as three men are often required to properly handle a play pipe when hose is under high pressure or in awk- ward positions, such as upon ladders or roofs or in restricted places, though two are usually able to keep a stream in effective play under normal conditions. One man should be selected for the special duty of LARGE STRUCTURES 75 turning on hydrants, connecting the hose at the hy- drant, making the necessary hose couplings and help- ing the others in case of breaks, etc. It needs hardly be said that each man should be made familiar with the duties of the others so that he may perform them in any unusual circumstances. It is well to keep down the number within each company, for a chief can direct the battle against a fire much better through a series of lieutenants or subordinates, than by direct orders to a large number of men, just as is the case with an army. Moreover, this system of division into small units makes for rivalry and gives a chance for promotion ; both things to be de- sired. Three companies go to make up each bat- talion, which is commanded in the manner already indicated. Hook and ladder companies are excellent in plants where there are high buildings. They are to be considered as distinct from hose companies and may well consist of six men and a captain. Each member should be assigned to the specific duties he is to perform. Frequently permanent ladders can be fastened on the sides of buildings which will aid greatly in the work of the ladder companies. The men from whom companies of both kinds are made up should be chosen for their strength, coolness, 76 FIRE PREVENTION familiarity with the buildings and general reliability. If the factory is in an outlying district or typical mill town, the men of the private department had best be those who live within sound of the fire signal. This provision, is of course, unnecessary where the force is to act simply in the daytime or during, working hours, as is nearly always the case in large cities. If the members of the private department are to respond to alarms at times other than work- ing hours they should be provided with suitable badges for identification. I now come to a most important matter in con- nection with a private organisation of this charac- ter. I refer to drill. This is absolutely essential if the department is to be really useful and worth while. Thorough drill should be held at least twice a month, in which the men connect hose with the hy- drants or standpipes, lay lines, carry hose into or up the sides of buildings, and, in short, go through every operation that they would perform in the case of a real fire, except the turning on of water. In addition to these semi-monthly drills there should be frequent false alarms with and without notice, so that the men may be prepared to act promptly and not be confused or excited when the real test comes. At first care must be taken not to precipitate a panic LARGE STRUCTURES 77 by such false alarms, but it is surprising how soon the various employees lay hold of the spirit of the thing and learn to turn out in prompt order. When it is practical without doing damage, water should be actually turned on and in some cases it is even advisable to have an expert who is organising a department actually start a blaze outside a build- ing so that the men may become accustomed to real conditions. This last expedient is one to be treated with caution, it is needless to say, but the object of the commanders or organisers is to go through the work thoroughly and inculcate a spirit which brings out the men at every alarm ready to face and meet the possibility of an actual fire. If water can be used without doing damage, it will help to accustom the men to feel the weight of full hose and make the drill all the more realistic. During drills and at actual fires, hose which is taken up on ladders should have leather strap at- tachments to fasten to the ladders and thereby take the strain and recoil from the men. On roofs at least three men should be stationed with each play pipe and two extra men should be nearly to help in case hose becomes unmanageable, and to pass sig- nals. Hose men should be taught to lay their lines without twists or kinks or short turns, and this ap- 78 FIRE PREVENTION plies to the elevation of the play pipe from the ground as well as to the rest of the hose. They should also be taught how to follow a line or " lead " of hose in and out of buildings, as this is an invalu- able safeguard when there is dense smoke, one of the easiest things in the world in which to get lost or confused. Twisting or kinking of hose is likely to cause bursts or to make the play pipes practically unmanageable, through the force of the recoil. In addition to the men who are to fight the fire on the scene, each private department requires an engineer to look after the pumps, whether they be rotary or of other type, to see that an even pressure is maintained. In most cases a pressure of one hundred and twenty-five pounds at the pump is suf- ficient, although the height of the buildings involved is, of course, a determining factor in this matter. Arrangements should also be made to have an extra force of men at the boilers which are to supply the steam for the pumps during a fire, as the demand for steam for this purpose is unusually great and is often beyond the capacity of the regular stokers of the plant. These men, like all the others of the pri- vate department, should respond to station at the sound of the alarm. Care in perfecting a system of alarms is an im- LARGE STRUCTURES 79 portant part in the organisation of a private fire de- partment, such as I have described. Steam whistle signals are usually the most practicable for this pur- pose and it will be found a good plan to have one set signal as a general alarm to serve the purpose of notifying the employees that there is a fire. If this first signal is used to show the location of the fire as well as its existence, it is apt to be confusing, for in many of the places where private fire departments are most efficacious, as for instance, factories, lofts and mills, there is frequently much noise from ma- chinery, which serves, in a greater or less degree, to drown the sound of the alarm and tends to make mistake easily possible. After the first general alarm, therefore, it is bet- ter to have a system of location alarms, which by blowing certain numbers and simple combinations of blasts, will notify the fire-fighters of the location of the blaze. At the first or general alarm the en- gineer whose duty it is to look after the pumps should at once repair to them and in many cases it is well to have him actually start them before waiting for any further signal, and shut off all power that operates machinery in the building. At the sounding of the location alarm, the hose and ladder companies of course repair to the station indicated, 8o FIRE PREVENTION where they put themselves under the orders of the chief or the battalion chief as the case may be. This system is as readily carried out when bells are used to give the alarm as when whistles are the mediums. An extension of the private fire department which is sometimes advisable in large organisations, is to have picked men detailed to form a salvage corps, to be provided with rubber sheets and other protec- tive devices, so that when fire breaks out they can at once begin covering up and protecting perishable stock, and giving protection to any pieces or parts of machinery liable to water damage. The plan of organisation of any such private body of fire-fighters should be posted conspicuously in all the buildings of the plant in question, so that the men in and out of the department may become familiar with it readily. Organisation is the key- note here as it is in every branch of fire extinguish- ment. The more nearly a fire department ap- proaches a military organisation in matters of co- operation and discipline the more effective it will be found. Frequent inspection of apparatus as well as frequent drilling should be the rule. In this way the condition of the hose can be watched, and the tools, such as spanners, crowbars, axes and play pipes, will not become scattered and out of place. LARGE STRUCTURES 81 Play pipes should, by the way, be handled carefully, as dents and imperfections affect the smoothness of their bore and thus spoil the power and direction of the stream delivered. Obviously it is impossible to give an exact list of the number of tools and pieces of equipment which such a department should have, in order to be com- pletely fitted; this is a matter which is relative and which depends upon the size of the building or property protected. The nature of the implements, however, can be given and the following list in- cludes the chief requirements: Hose in a sufficient quantity to concentrate the entire capacity of the water supply on any given section or building. Plenty of standard play pipes and nozzles, so that there need be no delay in gather- ing them when a number of streams are simultane- ously desired. Fire axes and bars of standard pat- tern in generous quantities, to be carried on hose and ladder wagons. A plentiful supply of span- ners, to be carried on the hose carts and at the mens' belts. Coils of inch and a quarter rope provided with snap hooks at the ends. These ropes should have a length sufficient to reach the ground from the top of the highest buildings in the plant. Plenty of fire lanterns of a pattern in which the lamp will not 82 FIRE PREVENTION drop through the bottom of the frame or be ex- tinguished by water striking the lantern. In addition to these pieces of what may be called offensive equipment, arrangement should be made to hoist hose clear of the ground to dry. The hose should hang vertically from supports by the male coupling so that it can drain properly. The sup- ports must be high enough to accommodate the standard hose length of fifty feet. So much for the private department itself. But of its relations to the public department, paid or volunteer, there is more to be said. The private department should not be looked upon as a law unto itself or as a sole reliance for putting out fires. Very often it will suffice if properly trained and of- ficered, but the members should be thoroughly im- bued with the idea that they are to work in harmony with the regular fire-fighting organisation of what- ever place they may be inhabitants. There should be no rivalry between the proper regular or public department and the proper private department; rather there should be thorough co-operation. Clear instructions on this point should form a part of the notice posted in relation to the private department itself, and the men should not be allowed to have any hazy ideas of their own rights in working the LARGE STRUCTURES 83 private apparatus or of the rights of entry and ac- cess of the public department in time of fire. It is always desirable to foster a friendly feeling between the two organisations by inviting that of the city, or that part of it which will respond in case of fire, into the premises and allowing its members to become familiar with the locations of apparatus and valves, with special danger points and with the arrangement of the buildings and the points of exit and escape. By such a programme of mutiral help and understanding, a much more effective front can be presented to the common enemy when the crucial time comes and the property owner will find himself in much more secure position than if he permitted any friction between the forces at his disposal. CHAPTER V PROTECTION OF LIFE IN LARGE BUILDINGS IMPORTANT as the saving of property is, its impor- tance pales into insignificance as compared with the saving of human life. Moreover, by one of those strange contradictions, so frequently found, appal- ling as is the carelessness of property which we show as a nation, our national carelessness of life, as far as fire is concerned, is even greater. No one knows the truth of this assertion better than the man whose business it is to fight fire and who sees every day of his life some example of this criminal disregard for the safety of human beings, which seems to be the habit of all classes of the community and even of the community itself. In my long experience in New York City I have seen enough of this sort of thing to make a man a misanthrope and pessimist and have wished many a time that I could wreak some personal vengeance on the persons who were responsible for the snuffing out of innocent lives. The question of the protection of life from the 84 PROTECTION OF LIFE 85 dangers of fire and smoke and their accompaniments is well-nigh all-embracing; that is to say, it applies to the home and the huge hotel, the tiny shop and the great factory, the workroom and the school. Its terrible gravity in every case, however, from the dwelling to the crowded theatre, hangs on one word panic. Some people may say, " Oh, well, if it's panic, that is the fault of the people themselves, not of the owner, the employer, the manager or the municipality." There is a grain of truth in this argument which gives it plausibility, but only a grain. For panic is due to lack of training, lack of organisation, lack of drill, lack of direction. It can be avoided, it can often be stopped after it has gained some headway. Certainly the responsibility cannot be thus lightly put off, and the shocking disasters with which everyone is familiar laid by with a word. I am willing to assert that ninety-nine out of every hundred lives that have been lost through fire in the last ten years, not counting members of the fire de- partments, could have been saved, if proper methods of drill and of training and proper precautions in matters of building and means of escape had been the rule instead of the rare exception. That is the tragedy of it to one who has seen so many go' to a 86 FIRE PREVENTION fearful death. It could have been avoided so easily, by the exercise of such a modicum of intelligence and forethought. Of matters of construction and of fire-escapes I shall speak later; just now I am concerned with some of the simple, elemental things which can and imperatively ought to be done to bring down the annual roll of human sacrifices to the fire god. Drill, is the first consideration. In the home this consists merely of having every member of the household thoroughly posted as to the means of es- cape and the position and direction of opening of all doors. In the large building, the loft, the office building, and the factory, it is different only in de- gree. In structures of this nature conditions are necessarily different from those of the dwelling, be- cause of the addition of the element of congestion, and that of the inflammable and quick burning na- ture of the contents in many cases. This element or factor of congestion makes the introduction of drill, of systematic plans of escape, all the more vitally necessary. As I shall endeavour to show, there is nothing difficult about such drills, they are absurdly and pathetically simple. Let us first take, for example, a typical loft build- ing, such as now exist by the hundred in Manhat- PROTECTION OF LIFE 87 tan. It is, say, ten stories high. There are four tenants. One occupies the first two stories with a feather business; wholesale salesrooms on the first floor, manufacturing going on on the second. The next two floors are occupied by a milliner, who uses both of them as workshops. Above him for three floors are the cutting and sewing rooms of a cloak maker, while the three upper stories are occupied by a manufacturer of shirt waists who uses them all as work rooms. With some shifting of the loca- tion of the various trades there are scores of build- ings occupied in just the above way in New York City and in many of our other large cities the coun- try over. It will be noticed that each occupation in this building is dangerous and deserving of extreme pre- caution, in the matter of fire. All the goods which are being worked are inflammable, some of them, the feathers and the shirt waist materials, highly so. There are, perhaps, eight hundred persons employed in this building. The large majority of them are women and girls. Here you have an ideal setting for a fire tragedy, and it has often seemed to me fairly miraculous that the long list of fatalities in such places has not been even longer. Let us see what happens in such a building under 88 FIRE PREVENTION present conditions at the outbreak of fire. The blaze starts, let us say, on the fourth floor, in a pile of braided straw which is being worked into hats. Its origin may be one of a dozen things; a lighted cigarette, carelessly dropped; a spark from a bit of defective insulation on an electrically operated stitching machine ; heat from a friction belt or pulley of the wrong material, or what not. There is a curl of smoke and a little tongue of flame. A girl sitting at the nearest machine or table sees it. She leaps up and yells " Fire ! " shrieking as hard as she can. In the space of a breath the room is in pandemonium. The girls sixty or seventy of them are all on their feet, jamming each other against the rows of machines, yelling, trampling on each other in their frantic efforts to get to the exit they ordinarly use, an elevator or a staircase. In the flimsy material the fire is spreading fast. But it is still the merest infant fire, making a good deal of smoke and a little more heat, but still capable of quick extinction even with a chemical extinguisher. On the floors above and below that in which the fire is, panic also holds sway; the garment workers, the feather workers, the shirt waist workers, remember- ing other horrors, stampede without any cause, like sheep determined to be slaughtered. The doors Interior of the Parker Building, Fourth Avenue, New York The effect of great heat. Note poor protective covering of columns. PROTECTION OF LIFE 89 many of which probably open inward and some of which may be locked, because of greed of the em- ployers who must inspect each worker as she goes out at night to see that no thread of material is car- ried home are scenes of human ferocity too hor- rible to tell. By the time the first piece of fire apparatus comes rushing up in response to an alarm, sent in by a policeman or a passerby that is within five minutes of the first shriek of " Fire ! " fantas- tic bundles which look like great bolts of cloth, but are in fact women and girls, are whirling and twist- ing down from the windows from which they jumped or have been pushed, to the stone pavement fifty or more feet below. On the floor where the fire started the heat from the now roaring furnace of light material is intense and the unfortunates who cannot reach the windows are shrivelled up in its breath like so many pieces of paper. Perhaps you think this is an exaggerated or sen- sational account of a hypothetical case. It is not. Just that very thing happened in March, 1911, at the " Triangle Waist " fire in Washington Place, ex- cept that there the fire was on the ninth and tenth floors. When the toll was complete one hundred and forty-six persons had lost their lives. " An ex- 90 FIRE PREVENTION ceptional case," you say, " would not happen again in a life-time." On the contrary it could happen in a hundred buildings that I could mention in this one city. It could happen any day, at any time, even now, as I write these words. I do not believe that any one will argue the point of the shame and wickedness of conditions which al- low such calamities to be possible. That is not the question. The question is, what is to be done to change these conditions and make them impossible? For an illustration let us take the same suppositi- tious case as before. The same sort of fire starts in the same way, in the same place. Perhaps the same thing happens up to the point where the original girl cries " Fire! " But thereaf- ter all things are different. Every girl stands stock still at her machine until the leader of her squad or division moves forward, and she in turn does not move forward until the di- vision between her and the nearest exit has begun to move, then she walks not runs ahead and the girls under her leadership follow in single file. Not one stops or falls out of line, either to get her coat or for any other purpose, but all march steadily and without pause, through the door that opens outward and is not locked, down the stairway or down the PROTECTION OB LIFE 91 fire-escape or up to the roof, as the case may be, until the floor is clear. Meantime, the foreman of the floor, the manager, or whoever is in chief au- thority, seeing that there is indeed a fire, has broken the glass of the building alarm box or sent in a tele- phone call for the fire department, and, if there are other menon the floor or there is a private fire de- partment, has taken charge of the work of fighting the blaze and very likely has extinguished it by the time the first engine comes rolling up. At any rate his work has been of material assistance to the de- partment in keeping the blaze down and dampening its ardour. The result is no loss of life and a money loss comparatively trifling. The employees may even be able to return to work in an hour or two when all traces of fire are out and the work of clean- ing up has been finished. But how is this miracle worked? That is a na- tural question. But it is not a miracle at all, simply the result of regular drill strictly enforced and the banishment thereby of the element of panic. This case, like that of the holocaust of the Triangle fire, is not a dream. With minor variations it has been enacted scores of times, and indeed it was exempli- fied but a few weeks after that awful disaster in a factory fire in Hell's Kitchen. Not long ago a fac- 92 FIRE PREVENTION tt>ry was emptied at a test with false alarm in one minute. It had one thousand occupants. Before the system of drills had been adopted it required seven minutes to empty the same factory and panic was the rule whenever the alarm sounded, whether there was a fire or not. Fire drills, to be effective and to fulfil their pur- pose, must be rigidly enforced and practiced. In most cases the owner bears the expense of drills of this kind, but I have found that the owner with any intelligence is more than ready to bear this trifling expense in loss of workers' time, once he has been shown the inestimable advantage to himself, from the practical as well as the humanitarian point of view, which the drill will inevitably bring. Even in the case of piece workers, the drill is popular; not a few of these men and women have lost relatives or friends in loft or factory fires; nearly all save the newly arrived immigrants realise their danger, and are glad of this measure of protection even at a sac- rifice. The problem of the immigrant is a special one. Few persons save those who have been brought in practical contact with the working conditions of a great city and especially of New York, know how many of the operatives in any given workshop, or PROTECTION OF LIFE 93 sweatshop, or factory are strangers from foreign shores who have been in this country but a few months or weeks or days. Naturally these people know nothing of the language or the customs of their new environment. They certainly do not ap- preciate signs posted in English or directions given in English. For them the danger is therefore om- nipresent. For this reason all instructions for fire drills should be printed in the language of the ma- jority of the workers in a given shop; in two or three languages if necessary, in addition to English. If the owner or the employer is disinclined to do this on any grounds, he should be forced to by law, just as he should be compelled by law to institute drills. It was established by the fire marshal after the Washington Place fire, that a number of the girls who lost their lives as well as a number who were lucky enough to escape did not know a word of English and had been in this country but a very short time. Many of them had no idea that they could have escaped by two different stairways ; they knew of the existence of but one. Such conditions are in the highest degree reprehensible. It is a blot on civilisation that they should continue to exist. CHAPTER VI FURTHER MEASURES FOR PROTECTING LIFE I do not want to be understood as asserting that fire drills alone will safeguard the workers in the human hives of industry which now crowd the great cities of this country, the inmates of hospitals and asy- lums, school children, persons at theatres, dwellers in hotels, shoppers in department stores, or any other class of persons which, by the nature of its occupation or amusement, finds itself placed under conditions of crowding and congestion. Drills are only one of the important measures which seem to me imperative in order to cast a proper protection around such persons. Alone, they would often prove ineffective, as the best drill in the world can- not take persons down burning stairways or hot fire- escapes. As a complement to fire drills then, or perhaps rather as a basis upon which they can be instituted, all buildings in which numbers of persons congre- gate must be provided with proper and sufficient 94 PROTECTION OF LIFE 95 exits. This is a simple matter in the case of the one- story factory isolated in position, or located on a street corner. There, large doors swinging outward will allow the building to empty its human contents into the street in an incredibly short time. But with every story that is added to a building an additional difficulty presents itself, until at ten or twelve stories, with a hundred and fifty or more persons housed on a floor, the problem seems, at first glance, to balk any attempt at solution, on architectural and struc- tural grounds alone. It must be admitted that with many of our buildings as they now stand, readjust- ment to safe conditions seems well-nigh impossible. But the difficulties are not as insuperable as they may at first appear. Several alternatives present themselves after consideration. In the first place, the actual exit facilities can be increased by adding stairways and fire-escapes. Secondly, the number of workers on a floor can be limited to fit the means of exit already existent, whose capacity can be tested by a fire drill test. Thirdly, height to which build- ings should be erected can be restricted. Fourthly, new fire-escape systems can be adopted, totally dif- ferent in character from the present familiar succes- sion of ladders and platforms clinging to the out- side of buildings. Fifthly, the devotion of build- 96 FIRE 'PREVENTION ings within the crowded city districts to mercantile uses can be prohibited, and thus they may be forced to locate in the suburbs where more room and lower real estate prices lessen the temptation to high build- ing. Lastly, the incorporation of fire walls can be enforced in all structures of the crowded, and there- fore hazardous, kind. Some of these possiblities are practicable, others are not. I will take them up seriatim. While it is highly essential to increase the num- ber and size of stairways and escapes in a great number of large buildings, it is manifestly impos- sible to make them entirely adequate, except under exceptional circumstances, where adjoining roofs, for instance, can be utilised as havens of safety in addi- tion to the street. To be truly adequate there should be two stairways with exits independent of each other and of those from other stories for each floor of a building. They should be wide enough to accommodate two persons abreast. With some of our modern office buildings or lofts, built upon a comparatively minute ground area and shooting up from ten to thirty stories in the air, this would be physically impossible even if the entire exposed sur- face of the building at the street level were com- posed of nothing but the mouths of stairways. PQ - K* VALUE OF HIGH PRESSURE 227 On July 6, 1908, the system was formally turned over to the fire department, necessary orders for its use being issued to chief officers and company com- manders. At the outset, companies responded to alarms in the high pressure district with engines, and as a precautionary measure, made connections with the low pressure hydrants. As continued experience demonstrated the value and reliability of the high pressure system, these orders were changed; so that at the present time no engines respond to any alarm whatever in the high pressure district, except in obedience to special signals which may be sent out under certain conditions. For the first six months no very large fire occurred in the area covered by the high pressure service, and it was not until the 7th of January, 1909, that an op- portunity occurred to try it out under the most severe and exacting conditions. On this date the streets were almost impassable with snow, the temperature was but a few degrees above zero, and the wind was blowing at a velocity of fifty miles an hour. At 7 124 P. M., the department was called to a fire in a seven-story building at Hudson and Franklin Streets. This building was occupied as a whole- sale tea house, and on the arrival of the department the fire had extended throughout the building. I responded on the second alarm, 228 FIRE PREVENTION and found a fire of great magnitude border- ing the congested dry. goods district, surrounded by old buildings filled with combustible material, and providing a complete setting for a possible dis- astrous conflagration which might easily have proven to be a national calamity, as within a radius of two thousand feet of the building was more than a hun- dred million dollars' worth of property. While this fire was in progress, and still far from under control, in spite of the fact that a fourth alarm assignment was at work at it, a third alarm fire broke out on the Bowery, and a fifth alarm fire on Broad- way all within a square mile of territory. Each of these three simultaneous fires would have been a fifth alarm fire under the old order, and I seriously doubt if these three fires could have been controlled with engines, particularly when the difficulty of moving apparatus and supplying fuel, under conditions then existing, is considered. The emergency for which the high pressure was installed had thus arrived and it was met in the most complete manner. Fourteen million gallons of water were delivered from the pumping stations on these fires at a pres- sure of 225 pounds at the hydrant; and this was done with but seven of the ten pumping units in service, the other three being held in reserve. One hundred VALUE OF HIGH PRESSURE 229 steam engines would have been required to deliver this amount of water, and under the conditions out- lined, I doubt very much if it could have been done. The records of the Water Supply Department show the cost of electric current for operating the seven pumping units at these fires, and delivering the four- teen million gallons of water, was $1,200. The use of centralised energy for delivering water at high pressure through a system as described in- volves the maintenance upon the entire main and hydrant system of the maximum pressure required for use at any particular point. It is, therefore, quite likely to happen that while a pressure of 125 pounds may be ample at one fire, 200 or 250 pounds would be required at another fire in the protected area. This being the case, the pressure would have to be raised in the entire system; and the sudden increase from 125 to 250 pounds, coming as it would un- heralded, would make it difficult to control the lines at the small fire used in this illustration, and might seriously endanger the men at work there. To fur- ther illustrate, it is often desirable to take water from a hydrant at 75 pounds for a hand line, and to take water from another outlet in the same hydrant at 225 pounds for a tower or deck pipe. To make this possible a regulating valve is es- 230 F.I RE PREVENTION sential. Such a valve has been designed, and after full tests of its operation, it is now in use in the New York department. This valve weighs but twenty- five pounds, and is attached to the hydrant outlet. A pressure gauge is inserted on the hose side, and the controlling valve opened until the pressure on the gauge reads the point desire'd. No matter to what extent the pressure on the receiving side of this regu- lating valve is increased, the pressure on the dis- charging side remains at the point selected; and if a shut-off nozzle is used on the line, and is suddenly closed, -the pressure in the line is automatically con- trolled and cannot rise beyond the point arbitrarily fixed as indicated. It will readily be appreciated that a pressure regu- lating valve of this type is an essential feature of a high pressure system; fpr without it, such service cannot be properly controlled or utilised to the full extent of its inherent possibilities. In order to guard against the somewhat remote possibility of the breakdown of all pumping units in both stations, provisions were made in New York for connecting the fire-boats of the department to the high pressure system, by means of hydrants located along the water fronts. This is a practice to be recommended for any city equipped with fire-boats. These boats VALUE OF HIGH PRESSURE can deliver through this system, 60,000 gallons of water per minute at a pressure of 250 pounds. Further, in the event of a very large conflagration, or of several simultaneous fires, the capacity of the high pressure mains can be doubled by using the fire- boats in conjunction with the pumping stations, both together being capable of delivering 100,000 gallons per minutes through the hydrant system. In the extension of the service which has been de- scribed duplicate mains and hydrants were installed. This is a wise safeguard, for in the event of a break in one set of mains, lines can be quickly transferred to the other set. The routine operation of the pumping stations may be likened to that of an en- gine or other apparatus company, in that the stations receive in the customary manner, all alarms of fire which are transmitted over the fire-alarm telegraph system. Upon the receipt of an alarm from a sta- tion within the high pressure district, the pumps are instantly set in operation and the pressure in the mains raised to 125 pounds, this pressure of course being immediately available upon the arrival of the companies at the fire. The control of the pressure thereafter, whether for shutting down the pumps altogether, or for di- minishing or increasing it, lies with the officer in 232 FIRE PREVENTION command at the fire. His orders are transmitted to the pumping stations over special telephones, which are located at frequent intervals throughout the protected area. These telephones are placed on the walls of buildings, and are connected on circuits leading directly to the stations, and are maintained under contract with the local telephone company. Experience has demonstrated, however, that this system of transmitting orders to the pumping sta- tions, is susceptible of much improvement. In addi- tion to the slowness of telephone communication as compared with telegraphic signalling, and the ever- present possibility of a misunderstanding of orders, the difficulties attendant upon telephoning under severe weather conditions, and upon the noisy streets, are considerable. Beyond this, also, is the imprac- ticability of making a permanent record of orders issued, and of thus placing responsibility for any errors which may be made. This applies to orders for pressure when water is desired for a fire out- side of but close to the high pressure zone. A case of this kind was the costly fire in the Equitable Building. In my judgment, orders from the commanding officer to the pumping stations should be sent tele- graphically, and should be simultaneously received, VALUE OF HIGH PRESSURE 233 recorded, and stamped with the hour and minute of their receipt, both in the headquarters of the fire de- partment and in the pumping stations. A special signal station for this purpose could be so arranged that the setting of a pointer to the pressure desired, and the " pulling of the hook " would automatically telegraph the desired order, and cause the simul- taneous record to be made as indicated, obviating any possiblity of delay or misunderstanding. A telephone set in connection with such a signal box, would be a valuable auxiliary. The almost immediate effect on insurance rates was one of the most gratifying results of the installa- tion of the high pressure service in New York City. In December, 1908, about six months after the sys- tem was put in actual use, the New York Fire Insur- ance Exchange made a general reduction in rates in the high pressure zone in the Borough of Manhat- tan, which amounted to a saving in premiums of $500,000 annually. Of the reduction in insurance rates in Brooklyn, due to improved water supply, $250,000 annually is due to the high pressure sys- tem, so that this great improvement earned $750,000 returned per year to the taxpayers, shortly after its installation. The saving has since that time been greatly increased. 234 FIRE PREVENTION The system is, therefore, not only to be regarded as a great protection to life and property, but as one of the most productive investments which the city has made. Every improvement is fire-fighting devices should be freely given to those charged with the great responsibility of protecting life and property in our crowded cities ; and this very responsiblity de- mands that we should not hesitate to ask for needed appropriations, and that the authorities of our cities should not hesitate to grant them. It would be hard to find a better investment from the fire hazard standpoint than a high pressure system of the gen- eral type which I have described, for any city whose location makes its installation possible. Center Central Feed to Automatic Sprinklers. Best form O shows a Sprinkler. O shows a Riser. End Central Feed to Automatic Sprinklers. Not deslreable. O shows a Sprinkler. O shows a Riser. CHAPTER XIII THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT : ITS NATURE AND USE ANY city which is so situated geographically as to be able to supplement its fire department by the addition of fire-boats, would do well to make a study of these effective floating fire engines and at once acquire as many as the size of the city and the extent of its water frontage call for. Experience has amply demonstrated their value, wherever there is a built- up water front, or wherever any congested or hazardous district of the city is sufficiently near the water to make the service of the boats available. As nearly all cities on ocean harbours, rivers or large lakes have important dockage areas and piers which are invariably difficult to protect from fire by the ordinary resources, it will be appreciated that the field of the fire-boat is a wide one. It is important that these water batteries of pumps and nozzles, which can throw more water in a minute than a dozen land engines of the largest size, should be of good design and construction. The best is none too good, and if the best is pur- 235 236 FIRE PREVENTION chased, the department will find itself in possession of an extremely useful and effective piece of fire-fight- ing machinery. I have, therefore, described some- what in detail the construction and equipment of a high-grade fire-boat, such as those now in the pos- session of New York City, as a model on which I believe these pieces of apparatus may well be pat- terned. Naturally the first step is always to secure the necessary funds for the purchase or building of the fire-boat, but this should be no very difficult mat- ter, once the advantage of these powerful factors in the battle against fire is realised. After a suitable appropriation for the construc- tion of a fire-boat has been made, the most important of the initial steps towards placing in commission a thorough, efficient and economical fire-fighting machine, is the selection of the marine architect who is to design the boat. The architect, needless to say, should be fully conversant with every detail of his profession, and, furthermore, he should possess a general knowledge of fire-fighting apparatus. It can be stated almost axiomatically that an architect and builder well chosen means a boat well built. In addition to this too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the prohibition of innovations in the construc- tion which have not been fully tested, and have thus ^ 1 T3 -S 12 o CO 4J gj B H i C3 O O *7 PC ^ THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 237 demonstrated their worth. A mistake as to the possibilities of an untried device may in the future result in serious loss of life or property. On the other hand, of course, no hinderance should be placed in the way of the application of proved ad- vances in the construction and operation. To design a boat that can be manoeuvred in nar- row and crowded slips, basins and channels, it is necessary to lay down some general rules of construc- tion. First, the boat should be twin screw, and her engines of the compound type. In this connection it may be said that for this purpose single expansion engines are not reliable; they are unsuited for manoeuvring, are less efficient, and should be elimi- nated at the start. The triple expansion engine is likewise not adapted for fire-boat use, as it takes some time to warm up the low pressure cylinder. With the compound engine this disadvantage is avoided, and the steam is in better condition as it enters the low pressure cylinder; in consequence the boat can be started more quickly, and it is possible to make better time to a point within three miles of the station from which the boat is started. For this reason I favour the compound, reciprocating engine for driving the boat. 238 FIRE PREVENTION If the turbine could be reversed as quickly and certainly as the reciprocating engine, I would favour it; but in this regard many things still remain to be demonstrated with this otherwise excellent prime mover. One cannot afford to experiment in the fire service, and while the turbine is a splendid en- gine to drive the pumps, for the present at least, I recommend that the reciprocating engine be used as propelling agent for the boat, and the turbine to operate the fire pumps. The boat with twin screws has many advantages over one with a single screw. She can be " worked short " in crowded slips, and turned almost in her own length. At large pier fires, where it is prac- tically impossible to get a line fast in order to moor the boat, the twin screw boat can stand up and fight, where one with a single screw is driven off by the pressure exerted on the standpipes. In the important element of speed the advantage is with the twin screw boat. Her propellers are properly submerged; they are far enough under water to avoid striking floating logs, ice or other obstructions, as well as being prevented from taking air. They are smaller in diameter than a single screw, and the greater dimension of the latter is one of its weak points. A boat of light draught is im- THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 239 perative in order to reach fires adjacent to shallow water; it is almost impossible to design a boat of light draught, say nine feet, and to obtain a screw large enough, and arranged at a sufficient depth un- der water, say one foot six inches, to drive her at a rate of speed higher than ten miles an hour. With the twin screw boat these objections do not exist, and even if there were but one point in favour of the twin screw boat, that of her great manoeuvring power, it would be sufficient to commend this type for a fire-boat. The fire-boat I would recommend should be 120 feet in length over all, with a 24-foot beam and a 9-foot draught ; and should be built of steel. Frames spaced 20 inches, centre to centre, except forward, where, for 18 feet on each bow, they should be 12 inches apart, centre to centre. This feature is nec- essary to strengthen the boat for forcing her through heavy ice and against obstructions. The decks should be flush fore and aft, and as clear as possible of all obstructions, as the boat must be ready for action at all times. The common prac- tice of providing a large pilot house should be avoided. The edges of the pilot house should be rounded so that the couplings of the hose will not catch; a small skylight between the pilot house and 2 4 o FIRE PREVENTION the tower can be provided to ventilate the engine room. A boiler hatch is necessary for the same pur- pose; this, with the tower, which can be used as a staff for running lights, and the turrets and hose reels are about all that should be located on deck. The turrets stand directly over the pumps. They will be described at length in conjunction with the fire pumps, and the water circuit. The boat should be protected by means of proper guards; there are times at a fire when it is necessary to force the vessel into crowded slips, and in order that she may sustain as little damage as possible at such times, the guards and rails should be strongly built of sound, well-seasoned oak. The upper guard should run from the stem at one side around the hull, and meet the stem at the other side; it should be about 10 inches deep, bevelled out- wardly on the under side to 7 inches, and 12 inches wide. Around the stern, the width can be dimin- ished to 10 inches. The lower guard should be about 8x8 inches, tapering out to a 6-inch face width, and should be faced with a 5-inch x %-inch plate with rounded edges. The main rail should be of white oak 13 x 4^2 inches, in long lengths, with a 4-foot hook scarf, the rail to be protected with half-oval galvanised iron 31/2 x % inches around the outside of the boat. ;' z l c <-> J?? 3 PQ c/a ^ "c M rt C I h THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 241 About every ten feet there should be an opening with a brass sleeve large enough to take rail pipes. The deck may be ignored for the present, and the boilers described. As an indication of the import- ance of this point it may be said that deficient steam- ing capacity has been the weak spot of nearly all fire- boats. There is to-day no boat in the fire service that can run her pumps and auxiliaries to their full capacity and also furnish steam for the operation of the main engine, and it is absolutely necessary to operate the latter, as the boat must be under full control at all times. I shall endeavour to suggest a set of boilers which will run the fire pumps and auxiliaries and still have sufficient steam horse power in reserve to operate the main engine for manoeuvring purposes, or slow tow- ing, if necessary. The boilers should be of the water tube type with large straight tubes, a grate surface of 120 square feet, a heating surface of 4,500 square feet and with a working pressure of 225 pounds under forced draught; either a closed ash pit or an air-tight fire room should be employed. Such boilers would evaporate 24,000 pounds of water on an estimated consumption of 25 pounds of coal per square foot of grate surface; that is to say 120 x 25 x 8=24,000. The turbine pump would consume 17 to 242 FIRE PREVENTION pounds of water per boiler horse power hour, and to throw 8,000 gallons of water per minute at 150 pounds pressure, it would require approximately 1,000 horse power. Consequently the total steam consumption for the entire pumping and main, or propelling, engines would be: Main engine, 150 horse power at 20 pounds per boiler horse power 3,000. Auxiliaries, estimated, 75 horse power at 40 pounds per boiler horse power=3,ooo. Fire pumps, 1,000 horse power at 17^ pounds per boiler horse power 17,500. Total 23,500. This is a conservative estimate of the necessary steaming capacity, and as the boilers can easily sup- ply 24,000 pounds of steam there is a comfortable margin of safety. I prefer to have boilers installed fore and aft; there would not be room in a boat with 24-foot beam to place them athwart ship. Furthermore I am opposed on principle to the latter arrangement of the boilers, as it makes it difficult to get around to clean, and otherwise take proper care of them. The coal and water supply for the boilers must be ample for all purposes. The bunker capacity should be at least 35 tons, with a fore and aft ar- THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 243 rangement of the bunkers. This is preferable to a thwartship arrangement, as the boat is thus far less difficult to trim than with the latter. In sea coast cities it is necessary to provide fresh water tanks for obvious reasons, while in cities on the Great Lakes this is not the case. There the feed water for the boilers can be pumped directly from the lake or river on which the boat operates. I am seriously opposed to the use of the built-in tank, and prefer the utilisation of the vessel's sides and bot- tom directly, as part of the tank wall, owing to the greater difficulty in cleaning and repairing the built- in tank. The main engine, as I have already stated, should comprise two units of the compound type with the high pressure cylinder n inches in diameter, the low pressure 24 inches and the stroke of the piston 1 8 inches, with a maximum steam pressure of 160 pounds, and at 200 revolutions per minute, each unit would develop 275 horse power, giving a total horse power of 550. This should be sufficient to drive the boat at a speed of 16 miles per hour if the hull is properly designed. The auxiliaries would include the air pumps with vertical twin cylinders, two double-acting 1 2-inch water cylinders with a 1 2-inch stroke and two feed 244 FIRE PREVENTION pumps with steam cylinders 7^2 inches in diameter, water cylinders 4^ inches and stroke 10 inches. Circulating pumps should be of the centrifugal type driven by independent engines, and should have a capacity of 2,000 gallons per minute. There should be a condenser of cylindrical shape with brass tubes and sheets, and having a cooling surface of 2,800 square feet. The practice of using one of the feed pumps for a bilge pump is not commendable; there should be a small bilge pump for this work, and also a small pump for sanitary purposes. There also should be an independent connection between the fire and bilge pumps, so that the boat could be pumped out by her fire pumps in case of accident. This connec- tion should be controlled by an independent gate valve. I wish to emphasise the fact that the practice of employing galvanised iron pipe or the auxiliaries, or for other purposes, while a saving in the first cost, in the end is much dearer than the use of suitable brass pipe; the iron pipe will last but a short time in salt water, and the cost of the necessary repairs in five years would be far greater than the addi- tional initial cost of brass pipe. Moreover, the loss entailed by the absence of the boat during the THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 245 time that she is out of service for these repairs can- not be estimated; a fire-boat should be kept in ser- vice as many days of the year as possible. On the Great Lakes this stricture in regard to the piping would not apply with such force; iron pipe can be used very well in fresh water. An efficient winding, steam-steering engine should be located in the engine room so that it can be under direct supervision of the engineers; the connection with the steering wheel in the pilot house should be by steel shafts, and cut bronze mitre gears. The cylinder of the steering engine should be 4^/2 x 4^ inches. The hand steering wheels should pref- erably be of mahogany with brass hubs and mount- ings; steering columns should be of brass with rud- der, indicator, and warning gongs. In addition to the steering wheel in the pilot house there should be a second wheel, abaft the water tower on deck, together with proper signal bell pulls ; this secondary arrangement is to enable the pilot to work the boat from both ends, fore and aft. This would be quite an aid in working out of crowded slips in strong tides, or currents. In addi- tion a small steam capstan can be placed on the for- ward deck. There should be an electric lighting plant, to operate about seventy-five 16 candle power 246 FIRE PREVENTION lamps, and also a searchlight. This would require a generator of about 10 kilowat output. The mat- ter that is of the greatest interest to firemen is that of fire pumps, their style and capacity; needless to say the success of the boat is largely dependent upon them. There are in the fire service several boats with reciprocating pumps. They have done, and are doing good work, but as I have stated, it is almost impossible to obtain boilers able to supply suf- ficient steam to operate reciprocating pumps at their full capacity. Pumps having a normal discharge of say 10,000 gallons per minute, based on predeter- mined piston speed, will seldom deliver more than two-thirds of the rated quantity under working con- ditions, because the boilers cannot supply steam suf- ficient to produce this piston speed, and because of the slip which increases directly as the speed in- creases. There is also the question of frequent re- pairs after every working period of any duration. In this connection it may be said that the valves re- quire no little attention, as the pins on the back of the suction valves corrode quickly in harbours full of sewage, and allow the valves to drop off. Centrifugal pumps, when turbine-driven, will do the same work with half the steam required by reciprocating units. This will enable the boat to S 8, .2 bf i, C THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 247 manoeuvre and still run her water battery to the full capacity; a condition which I believe does not exist on any fire-boat in the service at the preseant time. I therefore believe that centrifugal pumps having a capacity of 8,000 gallons of salt water per minute should be installed, that they should be driven by tur- bine engines of the impulse type, at a speed of 1,800 revolutions per minute. The pumps should comprise two units, each unit including a two-stage, direct connected turbine. The turbine should be of the horizontal type, equipped with two bearings, and. a coupling with the pumps coupled direct to the shaft, and operated at the same speed as the turbine without the interven- tion of any form of gearing. Each of the fire pumps should have a 1 4-inch sea suction pipe ; the outlets should be provided with sea chests having composition valves and glands, tobin bronze stems, and wheels operated from the working platform; the strainers should be fitted to the boat's side, and each should have an area of two and one- half times that of the opening in the valves. They are best placed just over the turn of the bilge, far enough from the bottom to avoid mud in shallow water, and far enough below the water line to avoid debris. The discharge pipes from each pump 248 FIRE PREVENTION should be 14 inches in diameter and should unite in a 1 6-inch main above the pump; each discharge into the main to be controlled by a valve. A valve should also be located In the main between the two pumps. The pumps to be so arranged that one can discharge into the other, thereby making them the equivalent of a four-stage pump, when extra heavy pressure is required. On the deck, above the pumps, should be mounted two composition turrets of circular section with oval tops, standing about 35 inches high, with a 1 6-inch inlet and nine 3^-inch outlets, each one of the latter having a brass gate valve, and standard hose connec- tion. The oval turret top should have a flange for a 5-inch gate valve, and over this valve should be mounted a nozzle of approved design. The cubic contents of each turret would be about 40 gallons. As the turret is a feature in fire-boat design which has been in use for a limited time, it may be well to make clear its virtues.. The old style of running a water circuit around the boat has many weak points. It adds a good deal of weight. The cast iron headers are constantly blowing out and the work of attending lines is distributed around the boat. I found it necessary, in remodelling one of New York's fire-boats, to overcome these defects, and decided THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 249 upon the turrets. The turret construction reduces friction, does away with a heavy water circuit run- ning around the boat; it concentrates the work, and provides two excellent nozzles placed directly over, and within a few feet of the pump. An 8-inch line controlled by a gate valve should lead from the 1 6-inch main forward to the underside of the pilot house, from which a 5-inch branch should be carried up to supply the nozzle on top of the house. A 6-inch branch should supply the bow nozzle, and a 6-inch line, led aft, should supply the nozzle on the tower. Each turret and each line of pipe leading to the fixed nozzles should have a gate valve, leaving a clear waterway controlling them, so that each fire-fighting unit is absolutely independent of the others, in case it is necessary to undertake repairs, or reconstruction. All valves 6 inches and over, should be of the rising stem type; in this type the valve stem and nut are kept from contact with the water, thereby avoiding sediment, and incrustation. The ordinary brass-mounted, cast iron valve provided with composition ring should be avoided, as the iron corrodes rapidly, thereby rendering the devices inoperative. Valves 6 inches and over should each be fitted with a by- pass or arrangement whereby pressure can be equal- 250 FIRE PREVENTION ised on both faces when opening them. The water tower should rise about 27 feet above the deck, and be provided with a platform, or fighting top, so constructed that one or two nozzles can be conven- iently operated by men standing on the platform. The nozzles on the tower have been found most effective in fighting fires on piers with upper stories. A better range can be obtained with the elevated pipes than from those on the deck. This also is true of warehouse fires. There should be two reels placed on deck for carrying 3 ^2-inch and one for carrying 2 ^2-inch hose. The location of hose reels below deck is impractic- able. Hose is heavy, and offers sufficient difficulty to handle on deck; when placed under the latter it be- comes extermely hard to manipulate. Furthermore, with such an arrangement great delay in stretching in at fires is occasioned. The reels should work on rol- ler bearings, provided with suitable gear to permit two men to handle them and swing them on a turn- table. Experience has shown that two sizes of hose, 3^ inches and 2^ inches, are sufficient. The first is the better for all-around work; hose of larger size cannot be handled with celerity, and the smaller size is unsuited to the pumps. A powerful stream of water can be forced through a 3^-inch line with a THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 251 1 24 or 2-inch nozzle. If it becomes necessary to re- duce the line for inside work a two-way Siamese con- nection with 2 ^2-inch hose and I J^-inch nozzle will give two good streams. A fire-boat of the kind described should carry fifty lengths of 3>^-inch and twenty-five lengths of 2^2- inch hose; the prctice of uatilising a hose wagon in responding to stations where fire-boats are assigned is a good one. The service could be improved by using, as auxiliary, a large motor-driven wagon, carrying sixty lengths o 3 ^2-inch hose and a full set of reducers, pipes, pipe-holders, etc. This practice is now followed in New York. I believe that the best arrangement of the wagon for carrying hose would be obtained by providing three compartments; twenty lengths of hose should be arranged in each. By such an arrangement three lines could be stretched at one time. The auxiliary wagon or boat tender should remain near the fire, and in this way all the tools required would be brought directly to the men, thereby doing away with the practice of running back to the boat every time a nozzle, reducer, or pipe-holder is required. The threads on all fixed nozzles should be in ac- cordance with the fire department standard. I mention this matter of standard again because the 252 FIRE PREVENTION manufacturers of the different pipes use different threads; in consequence the tips that fit one pipe, will not fit a pipe made by another firm, and this will cause confusion and delay; therefore it is imperative that all tips be interchangeable. The fire-boat should be equipped with the fol- lowing: One 2 l / 2 -inch to i^-inch controlling nozzle. One 2^2-inch to i^-inch controlling nozzle. Four 2 l / 2 -inch to i ^4-inch open brass nozzles. Four 3^-inch to i^-inch open brass nozzles. Four 3^4-inch to i^-inch open brass nozzles. Four 3^-inch to 2-inch open brass nozzles. Six 3^-inch to 2^-inch brass reducers. Eighteen 3>2-inch to 2^-inch brass reducers for turrets. One double female connection. Three 2>l-inch rail pipes. Twelve 3^-inch rail pipes. Three 3>i-inch hose jackets. Three 2^-inch cellar pipes. One y$ ton chain lift. One i ton chain lift. Six 3*/2-inch piper-holders. Three 2 r / 2 -mch pipe-holders. One full set of machinist and pipe fitter's tools, and other equipment. The subject of next importance in connection with a city's fire-boat service is that of a wharf or dock for berthing the boat. This should be at the centre of the fire zone to be covered, or as near to the centre as it is possible to obtain a location. The boat should be moored, bow out, in a berth free from all obstructions so that she can respond in- stantly to call. Sufficient wharfage should be se- o I to THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 253 cured to permit the erection of a house to serve as quarters for the company; a good frame house for this purpose, with all modern improvements, can be built for about $15,000, and a house of much more desirable, slow-burning or fireproof material for a few thousand dollars more. The general arrangements of this house should in- clude a sitting room, with a desk for the house- watchman, telegraph, telephone, bath room, and office on first floor, dormitory, officers' rooms on the second floor, and a hose tower at one end. The gen- eral arrangements should be the same as in the quar- ters of the land companies. In the important matter of selecting the members of the company care should be taken to assign men who understand a boat, and who have had experi- ence at sea, both in the engine room and on deck. It is bad policy to spend a large sum of money on the construction of a boat, and the installation of an expensive outfit, and then have it fail through lack of intelligent operation. The captain and lieu- tenant should not only be good firemen, but also good boatmen. The pilots should be men of long experience in the waters in which the boat is to operate. Good pilots will keep down the cost of maintenance. The engineer and his assistants 254 FIRE PREVENTION should be thoroughly competent; by selecting such men the cost of maintaining a boat can be kept down to the minimum. If other methods are pursued the cost will be high, and the boat often out of service. The firemen should be young and active ; if enough men with boat experience can be found in any de- partment they are the best to draft into this branch of the service. The boat should be under steam at all times. This does not necessarily mean that she should be blowing off steam. But a steam pressure of twenty pounds below the tension of the spring of the safety valve should be constantly maintained. The pilot and engineer should be stationed on board. On re- ceipt of an alarm at night the first thing is to start the dynamo, or under the law, in New York at any rate, the boat cannot move until her lights are properly dis- played. In the daytime this, of course, is unneces- sary. Then the air and circulating pumps should at once be started, and, on signal, the main engines. The turbines should be warmed up, and the fire pumps turned over dry. On deck, hose reels should be un- covered. If the fire is within striking distance of the standpipes, all valves on the pipes to be used should be opened when the boat approaches to within one thousand feet of the fire, and the water started THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 255 as soon as the main engines are slowed down. If it be a pier fire, the boat should be moved along at a moderate speed and all pipes directed into the heart of the fire. This is the time that the officer in charge of the boat is called on to exercise good judg- ment; on the shore side there are chief officers, but conditions may be such that they cannot get orders to the boat; hence the captain of the vessel must use his own judgment and fight his boat to the best of his ability. In New York, where there is a fleet of ten boats, it has been found necessary to organise them into a homogeneous unit, a Marine Division. The result has been a more efficient operation, and the lessen- ing of the cost of maintenance. The chief of the marine division is assigned to all stations where a boat is assigned. He responds to fires in a steam launch, and commands on the wharf side. A code of operating signals has been established, which are sounded on the siren whistle. In this way orders are transmitted from the chief over a considerable distance even if the smoke be heavy, and the boat consequently invisible. The chief officer on shore can also be communicated with, and if necessary, taken on board by means of the steam launch. No specific rules can be laid down to govern the 256 FIRE PREVENTION important matter of handling boats at fires, but in all cases the first boat, or first two boats to arrive at a pier fire should take up position to leeward, and as close as possible, and the third boat to windward, if conditions warrant it. Each chief knows best the conditions under which he is working, and gov- erns himself accordingly. Shore lines can be operated successfully at a dis- tance of five hundred feet, and for them 3^ -inch hose with i J4 or 2-inch nozzles gives the best results. A good, up-to-date pipe-holder should be used in order that the line may be thoroughly controlled, and effectively worked. If, through accident or ca- tastrophe, the water service of a city should become impaired, a fire-boat company could stretch lines of two thousand feet of 3^-inch hose. Each of these 3^>-inch lines would supply two fire engines of the largest size, which in turn could pump the water one thousand two hundred feet more. This would be effected by putting a 2-way connection on the 3^-inch line, with a male connection, the main line being arranged between two engines close enough to enable each to draw from it with its suction, or hydrant connection, and in this manner each boat could furnish water to twelve or sixteen engines. It may be thought that two thousand feet may be a THE MODERN FIRE-BOAT 257 great distance to force the water through 3^-inch hose, but it must not be forgotten that the engines would help, as they would create a vacuum on the re- ceiving side of the pump. Thus the water would have very little atmospheric resistance, and conse- quently would be forced along for a much greater distance than if discharged through a small nozzle against the atmospheric pressure. The question of supplying high pressure mains laid through the streets, by menas of fire-boats, is an open one; something can be said on both sides. If a boat is not needed for other work, she could be used for forcing water through the mains to fires at points distant from her station. The only way to furnish an ideal high pressure system is to build a permanent pumping station on or near the water front. As I have indicated in the previous chapter the boat could be used in an emergency, in case the permanent station is out of service or to supplement its efforts. But to depend on the boat entirely is not good policy. On the other hand, in cases where a high pressure system of this character is contemplated, a 1 6-inch main could be laid to the wharf at which the boat is stationed; this would enable the boat to supply the system, providing the territory to be covered was 258 FIRE PREVENTION not too great, without leaving her berth, and would mean a great saving of time. In regard to keeping a boat in commission during a rigid winter in the harbours of the Great Lakes, I fear I am not a competent authority to judge, not being familiar with conditions in the harbours of cities bordering on the Great Lakes. I can tes- tify, however,, that in New York no trouble is ex- perienced, although the slips are very often filled with heavy ice. Only an approximate idea can be given of the cost of maintenance of a fire-boat, the expense and lia- bility to damage depending, naturally, on the work performed. The following table gives the average cost of maintenance of one of the New York Fire Depart- ment boats : One captain $ 2,500 One lieutenant 2,100 Two pilots at $1,500 each 3,ooo Four engineers at $1,600 6,400 Nine firemen at $1,400 12,600 Three stokers at $3.00 per day 3.285 Coal 3,000 Paints, varnish, turpentine, etc 150 Engine and cylinder oils, boiler compound, etc.. 350 Hardware, brass fittings, etc 150 Rope ioo Packing, gaskets, etc ioo Docking, scraping and painting 650 General repairs ^ Total . $34,885 o rn CM ex INCENDIARISMANDARSON 295 against the wooden wainscoting in the hall, pour the kerosene over it and start his fire in that way. When he was caught in the act of making one of these fires, he turned out to be a young fellow, about twenty-five years of age, who was working as an errand boy in a drug store which was situated near the centre of the scene of his operation. After his arrest, he was committed to an institution for weak- minded persons, and about six months later, after having been discharged as cured, he was again cap- tured making a fire of similar character. Another captured pyromaniac was an attractive- looking young fellow about twenty-four years old, well dressed, with pleasant manners, and mentally not as far below normal as pyromaniacs usually are. He was a church member and took an active part in church affairs. He was addicted to the use of ciga- rettes, and as nearly an example of perpetual motion as was humanly possible. He had served a term in the Elmira Reformatory for setting fire to a house. After his last arrest for setting fire to a dwelling he made the following statement before the fire mar- shal: " Cigarettes have brought me to this. Ever since I was a boy I was crazy for them. And with this craving there came that other passion, which I can- 296 FIRE PREVENTION not understand an overwhelming impulse to set fire to something and I was forced to obey it. If I see an engine, I chase after it, no matter how far. I never can stop till I get to the fire." While making this statement he asked for a ciga- rette and lighted it. He breathed in a large volume of smoke and exhaled it. " I am a pyromaniac," he went on. " It is a dis- ease for which I need medical attention. I cannot help it. I am guilty of all the crimes charged against me, but I ought not to go to prison. I ought to go to a place where I can get a doctor's care and no cigarettes. When I set fires, I simply want to destroy property and see the tenants run. I have no intention to kill. I want to see the flames and the engines and enjoy the excitement" He made a lengthy plea to the trial judge who sentenced him, speaking somewhat as follows : " Your Honor : God is my witness, I cannot control myself unless my mind is attended to from a medical standpoint. I am willing to do right and be an up- right citizen. My thoughts as to what ought to be done are clear to me, but I cannot carry them out on account of a giddish, weak, and childish thought which gets the better of me, off and on, lasting two, three, or four days at a time." INCENDIARISMANDARSON 297 Another man of this type operated in a section of Brooklyn known as Park Slope. He was employed as a delivery boy by one of the neighbouring grocery stores. It was his habit when sent to deliver ah order to make a fire in the cellar of the house in which the order was delivered, and for three months he made from one to three fires a day, keeping the fire department constantly on the jump to extinguish them. Some were very destructive, and so great in extent as to cause a second alarm to be sent in. After his arrest this firebug was identified as having been previously arrested in Manhattan for the same cause, but for lack of evidence had been released from custody. He pleaded guilty and was sent to Elmira Reformatory. Another " pyro," as these maniacs are called for short, started his career in house-burning at the age of fifteen, by setting fire to the home of his grand- father. After a series of fires he was arrested and sent to a reformatory for four years. Upon his release he continued in his nefarious work, was again arrested and sent to prison for an indeterminate sen- tence of not less than four or more than ten years. At the end of four years, having become deeply relig- ious, he was released, and in a very short time there- after he was again arrested for setting fire to build- 298 FIRE PREVENTION ings, and is now serving a sentence of thirty years in Sing Sing Prison. Many cases of this character could be cited, and the general public have very little knowledge as to the number of this class of criminals walking un- restrained about the streets of any great city. They are all of them mentally defective and should be confined to an institution, where their habits could be studied, with a view to curing these symptoms when observed. I am informed by those that have studied pyro- mania exhaustively that these mental defects cannot be cured after the person has reached the age of fifteen. A long experience leads me to believe that one subject to this disease of fire making will con- tinue to make fires from time to time as opportunity presents itself. Incendiarism for gain is considered in fire depart- ment circles as a " moral hazard," and is due to the desire of securing something for nothing. Hardly a day passes in the city of New York that a fire of this class does not take place. It is easy to obtain a policy of insurance against fire, and one need not have any great amount of personal property to se- cure its issue. The insurance companies hardly ever inspect the property of the householder who INCENDIARISMANDARSON 299 applies for insurance. The rates are too low to warrant a surveying of risks of this class. Indeed it is surprising at times, when the investigating officer reaches the scene of a recent fire, to see how little of value was contained within the premises insured. The terms and conditions of many an insurance policy provide that in case of fire the insured shall make a list of his household effects and file it with the company, this list being the proof of what the risk in question contained previous to the conflagra- tion. Some of these lists are the most wonderful work of a vivid imagination, and it is due largely to the careless adjustment of these losses after the fire that the incendiary is encouraged in his work of de- struction. It is said that "moral hazard" begins where prosperity ends. Let a man be caught with a stock of goods on his hands which nobody will buy, with expenses piling up and bills payable coming . in, and his insurance policy becomes like a lure of Satan. Grasping at a straw, he will listen to no ad- vice, but commits the crime of arson to escape from his financial difficulties. I recall responding to an alarm of fire which hap- pened some years ago in the lower West Side of the city. Upon my arrival I was greeted by the bat- talion chief in charge with the remark: 300 FIRE PREVENTION " Say, Chief, this is the greatest attempt to burn up a building that I have ever seen." Following him into the building, my attention was directed to a stock of Spanish grapes contained in barrels piled in tiers throughout the store floor. Small aisles had been left between the rows of bar- rels which were piled one on top of the other to a height of about six or seven feet. Hanging through- out these aisles were beef bladders which were found upon examination, to be filled with a mixture of alcohol and turpentine. A large quantity of news- papers had been piled up in one end of the store and set on fire by the aid of a candle which had been left burning. The fire was discovered before it made headway enough to heat and explode the blad- ders containing the volatile oils. The proprietor of this place was arrested and charged with the crime of arson, and after a trial before a jury, was found not guilty and discharged from custody. The method used in this case is one that seems to find favour with many incendiaries of foreign birth. I recall a similar fire which occurred in a moving picture hall in Ii6th Street, in the upper East Side. There were found on the premises after the fire was extinguished thirty-nine bladders filled with a fluid which proved to be gasolene. INCENDIARISMANDARSON 301 One night just before going to bed I was called to a fire in a clothing factory. Upon the arrival of the firemen the doors of the fifth loft were broken in. After extinguishing the fire a strong odour of oil was detected. Upon closer examination of the premises, it was discovered that a number of large pasteboard boxes which had been placed upon the floor and cutting tables contained from one to three inches of a liquid substance of a highly inflammable nature. Leading from one box to the other were long strips of buckram, placed in such a manner that upon ignition of the contents of one box, fire would rapidly communicate with the others. Several half- burned candles were found inserted in bundles of waste paper. The windows of the establishment had been covered by heavy wrapping paper in sucK a manner as to prevent the fire from being seen from the outside. Despite all the precautions taken to avoid premature discovery of the fire, however, it so happened that a watchman in a building on the op- posite side of the street saw the flicker of the flame when making his rounds in the upper part of his building and turned in an alarm. All of these cases are types of fire which are set for the purpose of securing money from the insur- ance companies, and come under the class of in- cendiarism for gain. 302 FIRE PREVENTION Cases of this kind could be cited almost without number, and only recently a judge in the Court of Special Sessions declared from the bench during the trial of a case of arson, that he was of the opinion that fully twenty-five per cent, of all fires occurring in the greater city are incendiary in their origin. As a result of this statement, the District Attor- ney of New York County has recently organised an Arson Bureau, and placed one of the assistant district attorneys in charge, for the purpose of as- sisting the fire department in preparing cases, and prosecuting those who are deemed guilty of this crime. This is a move in the right direction, and the District Attorney deserves commendation for it. Other cities might well follow New York's example in this regard. New York City is not unfamiliar with veritable epidemics of arson during which half a score of fires have been started in a single district in the course of a few days. Not very long ago a single Harlem tenement had nine fires in the course of thirty-six hours, all apparently set by the same diabolic hand. No sooner would the engines depart or the janitor put away the fire extinguisher and calm the terrified tenants, than a new blaze would spring up in a pile of oil-soaked rags in another part of the house, INCENDIARISMANDARSON 303 usually under a flight of stairs or in some other out- of-the-way corner. The authorities in this case were unable to catch the culprit, and had to content themselves with deciding that the pyromaniac or criminal had gained access to the house by way of the roof. As has been pointed out, maniac fires are not the only form of arson. The Chicago police recently ap- prehended a man, who shall be nameless, who told a story of failing business over a period of a year and excused his incendiarism on the ground that he was trying to protect his partner's brother, who was financially interested in the hat business which he attempted to destroy. He made the following con- fession. " About two weeks ago and I talked over the matter of protecting his brother, and it was suggested at that time that we burn the stock of goods. I do not recall who first suggested the burning of the stock. On the morning of April 10 I and concluded to burn the place, and while we were both together we bought a candle in a grocery store on North Halstead Street, near Ad- dison Street, the name of which I do not recall. Then and I came back to the shop and went to the Boston Store for lunch and there we 304 FIRE PREVENTION bought a box of toothpicks which were paid for by- . :< Those toothpicks were used to support the candle on the floor of the shop. We bought a half pint bottle in a drug store and had the bottle filled with kerosene. " and I returned to the shop between 5 130 and 5 :45 o'clock that evening and found the shipping clerk still there. We again left the shop in order to give him an opportunity to leave. " went up first when we returned, and he and I entered the third floor. Both of us then collected papers and scattered the oil over the papers and boxes and cut away a small amount of the candle into the wick. We put a number of toothpicks into the candle at an angle in order to form a base for holding it on the floor. The paper attached to the candle was saturated with oil, as were the papers and boxes and other materials near the candle. Then I lit the candle." This man had a confederate in his work, and though this is not the case in the majority of in- stances, still there have been many " burning part- nerships " brought to the attention of the authori- ties. In the same city where the case just cited took place, Chicago, there existed for a time a true arson INCENDIARISMANDARSON 305 trust. The leader in this nefarious business, which was, of course, carried on for profit, gave testimony to the effect that in the space of a few months more than one hundred fires had been started by the trust, causing a loss of more than a million dollars' worth of property. New York has had a similar case un- der consideration very recently. The moving spirit of a band of firebugs, which is said to have been formed during the panic of 1907 and to have worked in collusion with dishonest insurance brok- ers, was arrested just after setting a fire under the very eyes of detectives disguised as tramps. The field of operations of this delightful character, who was previously known to the police, and of his cronies, was the tenement section of the upper East Side, a fact which made their work the blacker be- cause of the danger to human life which it neces- sarily involved. This man and his " firebugs' league " are said to have set not less than three hundred fires in the last five years. This wanton destruction of property and reckless disregard of human life in the bargain are perhaps more reprehensible than the work of the true pyro- maniac or the feeble-minded person. He, at least, is usually not responsible for his actions. But he is none the less dangerous on that account. The 306 FIRE PREVENTION State Charities Aid Association recently reported to the Legislature of New York concerning the grow- ing numbers of feeble-minded persons at large in New York City, forming a menace to the safety of the community. According to the report, one feeble-minded youth set fire to sixteen five-story tenement houses in this city in five months, endang- ering thereby the lives of three hundred and sixty families. His only motive was the love of excite- ment. Another case reported was that of a feeble- minded man who set forty-five fires within three months and caused a loss of $250,000. In addition to pyromania and greed, there are other motives which prompt fire setters. Revenge, mischief, and the desire to blot out the traces of other crimes, such as murder, are sometimes the moving causes. Thus the State Fire Marshal of Ohio reported that in 1911, out of eighty-five per- sons convicted of arson, fourteen were attempting to defraud the insurance companies, twenty-six were actuated by malice or revenge, three were attempt- ing to conceal crimes, eleven were insane or pyro- maniacs and thirty-one were merely mischievous. From the few leaves from the notebook of the arson records which I have set down, it may readily be appreciated, I think, that this crime is one of INCENDIARISMANDARSON 307 serious proportions in this country. All the energies of the fire marshals of the several States and cities should be bent to putting a check to its spread. Drastic punishment should be meted out to any who are found guilty of it while in their right mind, and there should be a persistent effort to trace and restrain those who, in their weakness of mind, start the flames merely to see the engines come, or to watch the spectacle of a burning build- ing. They should be recognised as among the most dangerous members of the community, and, though not treated harshly, be placed in proper institutions where their tendencies may be checked and their ill deeds prevented. For this purpose trained men are essential, for there is no trail more difficult for the detective to follow than that of the " pyro." Like other classes of maniacs, he is frequently gifted with unusual cunning and able to weave a mesh of concealment and mystification about his work that is exceedingly hard to penetrate. This is but an additional rea- son for insisting that a man of high abilities and character be chosen to fill the office of fire marshal in any city or State. Instances are on record in which the work of an incendiary has terrorised a whole community. This 308 FIRE PREVENTION was the case in Waterbury, Conn., in April, 1912. Twelve fires, all of incendiary origin, took place between 2 o'clock one afternoon and 8 130 o'clock the same night. So alarmed were the people of the city that the Mayor called out a company of the national guard. Among the fires, which were all started in the basements of buildings by means of oil-soaked rags, was one which destroyed the City Hall, and with it the tax assessor's office, causing a loss of $200,000. The work of the incendiary was similar to that of another fire fiend who destroyed property in the same city, in February, 1902, valued at $4,000,000. This year's incendiary timed his fires thirty minutes apart. One excellent practice with regard to arson is that of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, in offering rewards for the arrest and conviction of those who set fires. This plan has been in opera- tion since 1873 and, although but a small propor- tion of the total amount offered has been earned and paid out, the number of convictions has never- theless been such as to justify the practice. The amount of the rewards offered has varied from $1,000 to $25. During the year ending April i, 1912, one hundred and twenty-two rewards, aggre- gating $40,100 were offered. From 1873 to tne INCENDIARISMANDARSON 309 same date, six thousand one hundred and sixty-eight rewards were offered, aggregating $2,044,175, and two hundred and eighty were earned and paid, ag- gregating $84,519. These two hundred and eighty rewards resulted in, or rather were the result of, three hundred and ninety-five convictions for sen- tences, of which two were death, seventeen life im- prisonment and the balance prison terms totalling at least five hundred and eighteen years. This is a practice which might well be followed by States and cities. They do in some cases now offer special rewards, but the practice could be ex- tended with great benefit. CHAPTER XVII LAW MAKING AND FIRE PREVENTIVE WORK ALONG LEGAL AND OTHER LINES ALTHOUGH the evidence of the fire loss statistics shows that there is far too little general interest in the problems of the fire hazard in this country, much is nevertheless being done to study these problems and attempt their solution. There are many bodies whose activities are countrywide, concerned with these matters; associations such as the National Fire Protection Association, the national organisa- tions of fire chiefs and of firemen and other bodies of similar character. There are also a great many State and local organisations, water boards, volun- teer associations, etc., whose activities are engaged in one form or another in the presentation of a more impervious front against the arch enemy, fire. As might be expected, no class of persons in the country is more active in this regard than the insur- ance men. It is to their material interest, contrary to the erroneous opinion widely held, to keep down 310 LAW MAKING 311 the fire loss and help to prevent fire in every pos- sible way. Indeed, it may be said to be a vital part of their business, and it may be safely asserted that the interest of the property holder and the interest of the insurance company, or the underwriters, is invariably one in the matter. Both are fighting the same battle. They are allies. For the purposes of this work the National Board of Fire Underwriters has developed a feature of great value, which should be imitated by the national and State government, by establishing and main- taining laboratories, known as Underwriters' Laboratories, where exhaustive tests of materials and appliances which have any bearing on the re- duction of the fire hazard are conducted. The work of these laboratories has been and is of great value, and I believe that their work, already familiar to many, should be even more widely known. The purpose and methods of the organisation have thus been described by its managers: " Underwriters' Laboratories exists by virtue of a charter granted November, 1901, by the State of Illinois, authorising the corporation to establish and maintain laboratories for the examination and testing of appliances and devices, and to enter into contracts with the owners and manufacturers of 3i2 FIRE PREVENTION such appliances and devices respecting the recom- mendation thereof to insurance organisations. ' The corporation is not in business for profit. Its chief financial support is received from the Na- tional Board of Fire Underwriters under whose general direction the work is carried on. The members of the board of directors of the corpora- tion are chosen from the officers of the national board and other organisations of underwriters from which donations of money are received. '* The work of Underwriters' Laboratories is con- fined to investigations having a bearing upon the fire hazard, and is undertaken as one means of se- curing correct solutions of many of the problems presented by the enormous and disproportionate de- struction by fire of property in the United States. The object of Underwriters' Laboratories is to bring to the user the one best obtainable opinion on the merits or demerits of appliances in respect to the fire hazard. Such appliances include those designed to aid in extinguishing fires, such as auto- matic sprinklers, pumps, hand fire appliances, hose, hydrants, nozzles, valves, etc. ; materials and de- vices designed to retard the spread of fire, such as structural methods and materials, fire doors and shutters, fire windows, etc., and machines and fit- tings which may be instrumental in causing a fire, LAW MAKING 313 such as gas and oil appliances, electrical fittings, chemicals, and the various machines and appurte- nances used in lighting and heating. " The principal offices and testing station of Un- derwriters' Laboratories, Inc., are located at Chicago. Branch offices are located in thirty-two other cities of the United States and Canada. The Chicago plant occupies a three-story and basement building of fireproof construction containing some- thing over 20,000 square feet of floor space with a frontage of one hundred and sixteen feet. Yard space is provided for huts and large testing fur- naces. The main building in Chicago is, perhaps, the best example in America of absolutely fireproof construction, furnished with fireproof finish and equipment. Brick, terra cotta, concrete, stone, steel and iron, are exclusively used in the structural fea- tures. The window frames and sash are of metal with wired glass, the doors are of metal, and desks and filing cases in the main office are of steel, and even some of the picture frames are of the same material. No wood or other combustible material is used in any portion of the finish. In addition, the plant is equipped with automatic sprinklers, and the light- ing and heating hazards are safeguarded with every known precaution applicable to their installation in buildings of frame construction. In this model 314 FIRE PREVENTION building the underwriters have gone to the extreme in adopting in their property all of the measures they are known to recommend in the property of others. Fifty-two persons are employed in the Chicago plant, which, with its equipment, has a value of approximately $100,000. " Summaries of the laboratories' reports are pro- mulgated on printed cards filed according to classifi- cations, and cabinets containing these cards are maintained at the offices of the principal boards of underwriters and inspection bureaus in the United States, at many of the general offices of insurance companies, by some insurance firms, 'certain mu- nicipal departments, and at the local offices of the laboratories in large cities. Much of the informa- tion is also freely distributed by means of lists of approved and permitted devices promulgated by the National Board of Fire Underwriters, and the re- sults of the work in many classes of appliances are furnished directly to building owners, architects, users and all other persons interested by means of the laboratories' labelling system, under which goods are inspected at factories by laboratories' engineers and stamps or labels attached to such portion of the output as is found constructed in accordance with standard requirements. LAW MAKING 315 " The aim of the founders of Underwriters' Laboratories to secure the best and fairest opinion regarding the merits or demerits of every device, system or material having a bearing upon the fire hazard, and to have the work so conducted and re- viewed as to secure accuracy and uniformity in its findings, has been accomplished to such an extent that the majority of fire underwriters in the United States, many municipal authorities, and a large number of architects, building owners and users either accept or require a report from these labor- atories incident to their recognition of devices, sys- tems and materials having a bearing upon the fire hazard. " Underwriters' Laboratories, however, issues no guarantee that its findings will be accepted or rec- ognised in any case. Such assurances can only be obtained from the authority having jurisdiction. " As manifestly the regular subscribers to the laboratories cannot be called upon to cover the ex- penses of tests made at the request of others, a system has been established whereby a manufacturer or owner desirous of securing an examination and report by the laboratories on any particular device, system or material, is enabled to do so by first de- positing a preliminary fee as evidence of good faith, 3 i6 FIRE PREVENTION and on completion of the work paying the balance of its cost as shown by accurate records thereof, which are kept in detail. As a warrant that an ap- plicant will not incur costs beyond his expectations, a limit of expense is fixed in each case beyond which charges are not made. By this means an oppor- tunity is afforded anyone at comparatively low cost to secure the opinion of the recognised authorities covering any device, system or material in its rela- tion to the fire hazard. * The amounts of the fees are in proportion to the nature and extent of the work required in examinations and tests. The cost of experimental work is practically the same in each class of device, whether samples show superior or inferior qualities. 4 The applicant's obligation to pay the charges is not, therefore, contingent upon the nature of the opinion rendered whether favourable or otherwise. The schedule of charges found necessary in the dif- ferent branches of the work is arranged by groups as follows: Amount of Total cost to applicant preliminary fee not to exceed Group A $100.00 $250.00 Group B 50.00 100.00 Group C 25.00 75-oo Group D 10.00 50.00 Group E 5-00 25.00 LAW MAKING 317 ' The laboratories will upon application, accom- panied by description of the article to be tested, ad- vise as to necessary charges in each case. These costs cover one examination and test or series of tests on one pattern of device, system, method or material only. Where costs do not aggregate the amount of the preliminary fee, the balance will be returned to the applicant. Group F. Under this group is classified experimental work and researches covering subjects or appliances for which standard requirements are not adopted. The amount of the preliminary fee is $100, and bills are rendered monthly as the work proceeds. " Blank forms for use in making applications for tests will be furnished on request. Tests are made following the order in which preliminary fees are paid, work being begun usually within ten days fol- lowing payment of the fee, in case the article to be tested is delivered to the laboratories in time. Manufacturers and owners are welcome at the laboratories during the progress of tests upon their appliances. Advance notices of the time of mak- ing tests are not sent, however, except upon request. " In the case of articles or systems involving a number of structural parts, or where large expense would be incurred for shipment, preliminary re- 318 FIRE PREVENTION ports will be made upon receipt of fee accompany- ing drawings and complete description. Complete examinations and tests of systems and machines will be made where installed at additional cost for engi- neer's travelling expenses to and from nearest branch office of the laboratories, or to and from the principal office at Chicago. " One sample of a large appliance is generally sufficient for test purposes, but in a number of cases, especially those covering the smaller devices, various numbers are required, depending upon the tests prescribed for the class. Application for examinations and tests should be accompanied by description of the device or material sufficient to determine the nature of the test to which it must be subjected, and advices will then be given as to the number and size of appliances or amount of ma- terial required. " The time required for the completion of test work varies from ten days to six months, depend- ing upon the test specifications of the class. For appliances not classified no assurances as to the length of time necessary to complete the work can be given. Records of the lest five thousand appliances examined, tested and reported on, show an average time, between the receipt of the sample and the is- LAW MAKING 319 suance of the report, of approximately one month. " At the conclusion of examinations and tests, the results thereof, whether favourable or otherwise, are bulletined to the various insurance orgnaisations and companies subscribing to or co-operating with the laboratories' work, and a copy of this bulletin and the detailed report is furnished the applicant. A statement of the balance of the cost of the work (above the amount of the preliminary fee) is ren- dered, which is due on presentation. The charges made in the laboratories' work do not include cost incident to extension of credit or the allowance of discount Wherever approvals are granted, on the more common classes of devices, the names of the manufacturers thereof are placed in printed lists, distributed freely by the National Board of Fire Underwriters, and in some classes the devices are labelled as described below. Many of the leading organisations and authorities are at the present time using these lists or recognising the labels as the basis of their recommendations or requirements. " Whenever approvals of appliances are ready to issue, one of two forms of supervision over the article to be marked is required under such ap- proval. " The older of these forms is a contract to be 320 FIRE PREVENTION entered into between the manufacturer and Under- writers' Laboratories, Inc., whereby the maker agrees during the continuance of the laboratories' approval to construct appliances in exact duplicate of the sample approved, and to pay certain fees annually (ranging from five to thirty dollars), with which the laboratories partially defrays the cost of re-examinations made from time to time upon sample appliances secured from stocks offered for sale. " The newer form of supervision, which is con- sidered superior by the laboratories' management, and which is being introduced as rapidly as feasible, consists in inspections by laboratories' engineers of devices and materials at factories and the labelling of standard goods by stamps, transfers or metal labels, whereby they can be recognised wherever found. By means of this service the quality of goods in factories where approved articles are made is carefully observed, and the use of labels re- stricted to such portion of the output as meets in all essentials the standard of efficiency shown by the sample originally tested and on which approval was based. " Experience has shown that this method is in every way superior for the purpose of bringing to LAW MAKING 321 the consumer the article he desires, for the purpose of placing competition between manufacturers be- yond the point where deterioration in the quality of the output is made necessary, and for the proper protection of the laboratories and the organisations co-operating with them, which are given substantial recognition to efficient fire protection appliances. " It is also shown that an inspection and check- ing system of this nature can be efficiently operated under the laboratories' direction without calling upon the manufacturer to give undue publicity to his manufacturing process or subjecting him to any embarrassment or annoyance. The cost of this service is partially defrayed by charges made for the labels. These charges vary according to the nature and extent of the inspection needed. For goods which can be tested by machinery or which are machine made and run through factories in such quantities that tests of a number of samples of each day's output give a fair criterion of the whole pro- duct, the charges run from fifty cents to one dollar and a half per thousand labels. For goods made by hand and goods which require inspection or test of each individual item, the charges run from seven and one-half cents to twenty-five cents per label. In no case is the cost of the inspection service as repre- 322 FIRE PREVENTION sented by the charge for the label sufficient to be- come a factor of importance in determining the sell- ing price of the article labelled. 4 The prices charged for the labels include the following costs : ' ( i ) Cost of manufacturing the label. " (2) Salaries and expenses of agents and in- spectors at branch offices. '* (3) Salary of supervising engineer at home office. ; ' (4) Salary and travelling expenses of special agent. 4 (5) Overhead charges. '* The extension of the factory inspection and label service has made it necessary to establish branch offices of the laboratories in many of the principal cities of the United States and Canada, thus bringing a representative near to everyone in these cities who may have business with or wish to make inquiries covering the organisation and its work. The agents in charge may be freely con- sulted in reference to any material or appliance which has been submitted for examination." The underwriters who maintain this organisation for the study of fire problems have also issued a practical building code which, with minor varia- LAW MAKING 323 tions, according to locality or special conditions, might well be imitated by the buildings codes of States and cities the country over. Here, as else- where, standards are to be sought and prized; if building codes were universal, at least in their major provisions, there would be a great deal less confusion and a step in the right direction would have been taken. It is certainly a mistake to believe .that nothing can be done by law to stop the fire hazard. There are, unfortunately, many persons in every com- munity so careless or so selfish that they are quite willing to neglect or wilfully disregard the safety of others, if they believe that it will be for their pecuniary advantage to do so. This type of per- son is usually, however, one who stands in whole- some dread of the law and is willing to comply with its provisions once they have been called to his at- tention. If he is not willing to comply, the simple and obvious remedy remains of forcing him to do so. It is, therefore, clear that law in relation to fire exerts a wholesome influence in addition to the power which it gives to the proper authorities to enforce the provisions for safety and fire preven- tion with the particular municipality or State or community may have. By all means let us have 3 2 4 FIRE PREVENTION laws in regard to fires. The question is next in re- lation to the nature of these laws. Of course, it would be idle for me to attempt t^ lay down the text of ordinances in this regard or to prescribe statutes which would prove beneficial to each and every environment, but it might be well to suggest some of the subjects concerning which specific laws are likely to prove helpful in ridding the country of its burden of annual blood money extorted by the tyrannous hand of fire. Many cities and States have such laws at present, others are in the process of enacting them; still others have recognised the necessity of them, and will soon act. One of the first laws that I would advocate would be one against the use of matches of the non-safety type. Surprisingly few States or cities have any such ordinances, although among them New York is, I am glad to say, included. The other States and cities which are provided with legislation in this regard might almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. This is all the more surprising, as statistics clearly show that an enormous percentage of each year's fires is caused by matches, either through careless handling or improper manufac- ture. The so-called parlour match is a veritable menace wherever it appears, and, in my opinion, LAW MAKING 325 the country would be better off if its manufacture as well as its use were universally prohibited. More destructive fires are directly chargable to this one cause than to any other in the list of assignable causes. Matches of the wrong type should be classed among the most dangerous materials; they present more of an actual hazard in some ways than explosives, for the reason that they are not re- garded with any awe, and are therefore handled carelessly. The storage and handling of explosives is an- other matter which should come under legal regula- tion. In many cities it now is subject to ordinances. It should be so in all. In the constantly growing activity of building operations all over the country and the blasting and excavation necessarily involved therein, the use of explosives of one sort or another is greatly increasing. Nowadays we even hear ser- ious plans for ploughing and stump blowing by the use of dynamite, a practice which, if it becomes widespread, will vastly extend the use of this dangerous though useful material. Not only the use of high explosives of this character, but also their method of packing and storing should be sub- ject to the strictest sort of regulation. Fires re- sulting from explosions are usually serious ones, and 326 FIRE PREVENTION in addition to the money loss which they involve, they are frequently attended by loss of life. Regulations of law in this regard should by no means be limited to substances ordinarily classified as " explosives." Many chemicals and fluids used commercially or in certain processes, such as clean- ing, properly fall under this head. They, or the gases which they freely give off, are of a highly com- bustible character and a number of them will, if con- fined, cause explosions quite as serious as dynamite itself. Articles of this kind include such fluids as benzine, gasolene, naphtha, and various other fluids. The large cleaning establishments are frequent of- fenders against safety in the matter of their use of such materials, and there should be rigid regula- tions concerning not only the storage of their sup- ply, but also the amount which may be exposed in cleaning machines and open trays, and the kind of buildings in which operations of this nature may properly be conducted. The storage of gasolene in this day of the automobile is also a matter full of risk and well suited to legal restriction. I have already emphasised the dangers which re- sult from the accumulation of rubbish and waste material of various sorts. Few factors in the fire risk are more productive of evil, and few are more LAW MAKING 327 easily and justly open to correction. The careless- ness and untidiness which result in conditions of this sort are in themselves dangerous traits, which should not be encouraged but discouraged by laws making the presence of refuse a misdemeanour or even a felony. A few strong regulations of this sort would go far toward the reduction of this par- ticular hazard. Old rags, waste paper, cotton waste and scraps of cloth are all substances full of risk, and everything possible should be done to keep down their accumulation, especially in cities. The fact that the greatest quantity of them is usually to be found in the very portions of a city where their presence is most dangerous, the more combustibly constructed and more congested portions, but adds to the danger. Among the substances which may be classified with rubbish from the point of view of risk, are packing materials of different kinds. Excelsior, shavings, sawdust and the like are very widely used, and are, of course, necessary to many busi- nesses. But they cannot be looked on with a fav- ourable eye by the man who is interested in reducing the fire dangers in his community, and the rules as to their use should be carefully drawn and rigidly enforced. Under most conditions the householder 328 FIRE PREVENTION stands in peril of forfeiting his insurance if he al- lows inflammable substances, such as excelsior, to remain in his cellar. Why is it not logical to forbid their storage in still larger quantities in factories and mercantile buildings, which are ordinarily so situated as to be even greater danger points to the city? Bailed excelsior, like bailed hay, harbours a smouldering fire in a way which makes extinguish- ment peculiarly difficult, and firemen look on build- ings in which this substance is known to be with small favour. I remember a certain building just at the head of the Bowery, New York, in which excelsior was stored, which had three distinct fires in a period of six months. None of them was a blaze of little moment and quick work on the part of the fire-fighters was necessary to save the struc- ture in each case. Cellars and sub-cellars present in many cases what might be termed special hazards. Persons seem to have the entirely erroneous idea that a cellar is an excellent place to stow away all sorts of undesirable material, and under such a scheme of things it easily becomes little better than a junk heap. This, of course, is entirely wrong. Cel- lars, at best, are difficult to get at and present a hard problem to the firemen. A fire in one is well LAW MAKING 329 placed to make an ascent through the entire building before it can be brought under control. For these reasons, if for no other, it should be a punishable offense to allow cellars to remain in an untidy or cluttered condition. The fact that coal is usually stored in them only makes matters worse. I am strongly of the opinion that much good would come of a law looking to the better protec- tion of all houses used for residence, from the menace of their cellars. Tenement houses in par- ticular should be thus protected. No opening should be permitted from the interior of the build- ing into the cellar, which should only be entered from outside the building, preferably on the street side. Moreover, there should be a fireproof floor or partition between the cellar and the basement, that is to say the cellar ceiling should be fireproof in all cases. Such a requirement would prevent the spread of fires originating in cellars, from sponta- neous combustion or any other causes, up through the house. At present they have every chance of eating through the basement floor as well as being drawn up through the stairwells and the dumbwaiter shafts which form convenient flues for the flames. A law covering this matter would do away with a great many smoky and dangerous fires which now 330 FIRE PREVENTION menace the crowded tenement house sections of cities. So common are fires of this kind on the East Side in New York that when an alarm from the crowded human hive east of the Bowery came into my quarters in Great Jones Street at night, I could feel positive almost, that it was another " cel- lar " without paying a visit to the scene. Of course electric wiring should be regulated legally. It is a sure source of danger unless it is properly installed, and there are so many persons who are entirely willing to take chances for the sake of saving a few dollars in original cost, that the law should step in and make any such chance- taking exceedingly unpleasant for the gamblers against the risk of trouble. Wiring is, of course, perfectly safe if it is properly done. The regula- tions of the insurance companies go far to bring about good installation, but, in addition, the au- thority of the law should by all means be added. In the building codes of cities or of States, pro- visions for the protection of life are vitally neces- sary. Building codes are admittedly difficult things to draw up in a satisfactory manner, for the owners of some form of building material are nearly always ready to complain that they have been discriminated against. Difficult or not, the task of perfecting its LAW MAKING 331 building code is of prime importance to any com- munity, and the authorities which have this vital matter in hand should err on the safe side of strict- ness rather than of laxity. Conflict of regulations should be carefully avoided in all cases where more than one authority or law-drafting body concerns itself with the same subject. The provisions of the building code proper should, of course, not come in conflict with the regulations of the fire department put forward by its fire prevention bureau, or with the tenement house law in so far as it relates to fire. In cases of this kind I am strongly in favour of centralisation of authority in the hands of experts, and if the fire department is not to have the com- plete charge of all matters in relation to the fire hazard, its experts and chief officers should, at any rate, be consulted by whatever body has this work in hand. Much good can, of course, be accom- plished even if a number of different organisations or divisions of the municipal powers that be, are con- cerned in the matter and each provides its own rules, but the most satisfactory method is to have one set of lawmakers and one set of regulations covering all the classes of buildings found in the community in question. In many respects the tenement house law of New 332 FIRE PREVENTION York City is admirable, in its treatment of fire ques- tions, though it has certain provisions which I believe to be lax, such, for instance, as the fire- escape requirements, which call only for three-foot balconies and stairways of not more than sixty de- grees angle. On the whole, however, the law can be recommended as a model for other cities. It contains, for instance, a provision such as I have mentioned in regard to cellar stairs, applying it, however, only to non-fireproof tenements. In fireproof tenements it permits inside cellar stairs, provided they do not open under the stairs to upper stories, and are cut off, by fireproof partitions with self-closing doors, from the portion of the cellar used for the storage of fuel and for the boilers or other machinery. Some of its sections which are to be recommended are as follows: " In tenement houses hereafter erected, in all walls where wooden furring is used, all courses of brick from the under side of the floor beams to the top of the same, shall project a distance of at least two inches beyond the inside face of the wall so as to provide an effective fire stop ; and wherever floor beams run parallel to a wall and wooden furring is used, such beams shall always be kept at least two and one-half inches away from the inside line of the LAW MAKING 333 wall, and the space between the beams and the wall shall be built up solidly with brick work from the under side of the floor beams to the top of the same, so as to form an effective fire stop. " In tenement houses hereafter erected which either are occupied or are arranged to be occupied by more than two families on any floor, or which exceed four stories and cellar in height, the stair halls shall be constructed of fireproof materials throughout. The risers, strings and banisters shall be of metal or stone, or of hardwood not less than two inches thick ('wood should not be allowed'). The floors of all such stair halls shall be constructed of iron or steel beams and fireproof filling and no wooden flooring or sleepers shall be permitted. Wooden handrails to stairs will be permitted if constructed of hardwood. All stair halls shall be enclosed on all sides with brick walls. The doors opening from such stair halls shall be fireproof and self-closing, and if provided with glass, such glass shall be good quality wire glass. " There shall be no transom or movable sash opening from such stair hall to any other part of the house. Each stair hall shall be shut off from all non-fireproof portions of the public halls and from all other nonfireproof parts of the building 334 FIRE PREVENTION on each story by self-closing fireproof doors, and if glass is used in such doors it shall be of good quality wire glass. " Every apartment above the ground floor in each tenement house shall have a fire-escape derictly ac- cessible to it without passing through a public hall. All balconies shall be properly connected with each other by adequate stairs or stationary ladders, with openings not less than twenty-one by twenty-eight inches. All fire-escapes not on the street shall have a safe and adequate means of egress from the yard or court to the street or to the adjoining premises. " Every tenement house hereafter erected shall have in the roof a fireproof bulkhead with a fire- proof door to the same, and shall have fireproof stairs with a guide or handrail leading to the roof. Every such house shall have at least one flight of stairs extending from the entrance floor to the roof, the stairs and public halls therein shall each be at least three feet wide, in the clear. No scuttle and no bulkhead door shall at any time be locked with a key, but either may be fastened on the inside by movable bolts or hooks. All key locks on scuttles and on bulkhead doors shall be removed. No stairs leading to the roof in any tenement house shall be removed and replaced with a ladder. LAW MAKING 335 Every bulkhead hereafter constructed in a now existing tenement house shall be constructed as here- tofore provided. All shafts shall be constructed fireproof throughout, with fireproof self-closing doors at all openings, and each story, except window openings in vent shafts; and if they extend to the cellar, shall also be enclosed in the cellar with fire- proof self-closing doors at all openings. " In no case shall any shaft be constructed of materials of which any inflammable material or sub- stance enters into any of the component parts. No bakery and no place of business in which fat is boiled shall be maintained in any tenement house which is not fireproof throughout, unless the ceiling, sidewalls and all exposed iron or wooden girders or columns, within the said bakery or within said place where fat boiling is done, are made safe by fire- proof materials around the same. All transoms and windows openings into halls from any portion of a tenement house where paint, oils, spirituous liquors or drugs are stored for the purpose of sale or otherwise, shall be glazed with wire glass or they shall be removed and closed up as solidly as the rest of the wall; and all doors leading into any such hall from such portion of said house shall be made fireproof.' 336 FIRE PREVENTION That there should be special laws governing places of amusement and recreation goes without say- ing. From the nature of their use, places of this character are necessarily congested. One Iroquois fire should be sufficient for a number of generations, to say the least, and should teach the lesson of fire prevention and its legal requirements with perfect lucidity. Many of the present day moving picture theatres where the poor find their recreation, are the merest death traps. The danger of the films used and the intense heat of the lights which project the pictures on the screen bring these places into the category of special hazards. They should have specially rigid restrictions and regulations for the protection of the public. It may be said that panic will overcome the effects of the best regulations, and this, unfortunatel, is to some degree true certainly the dire nature of panic in places of this sort was clearly shown in the recent Pennsylvania fire which was the cause of many needless deaths and injuries. But it is the business of those who have the safety of humanity in mind to make provision for the ac- tions of fools and madmen as far as possible, so that if some wretch who sees a whisp of smoke chooses to jump up and shout " Fire ! " setting a whole audience in an uproar, there may, at least, be LAW MAKING 337 ample exit facilities to take care of the stampede which is practically certain to follow. In this way the law can exercise a beneficial influence, even on such uncontrolable things as panics. The construction of school houses should receive special attention from those who draft the laws, so that escapes and exits in plenty may be provided. I believe that in addition, it would be an excellent thing if there were a legal requirement for fire drills in every public school throughout the land. This would certainly tend to minimise the chances of a repetition of the disaster at Collingwood, Ohio, where so many scores of little children lost their lives. Of course similar drills should be incumbent on the owners of all factories or workshops and the employees of labour generally, as has been shown in a previous chapter. With many such persons the authority of the law, however, would alone force them to undertake such reforms, and for this reason it should be invoked. Greed which leads to a dis- regard of human life should be combated with force if necessary. One of the fertile danger spots in any large city, and especially in the city of New York, is the use of quick-burning materials in the many sweatshops and factories, crowded with working people and 338 FIRE PREVENTION often inadequately supplied with exit facilities and with fire appliances. If one looks into the windows of buildings where work of this kind is carried on, he will frequently see large piles of such flimsy stuff as lawn in various parts of the floors and even spread out over the machines or benches at which the employees work. Sometimes strips and pieces of unfinished and finished goods are hung on strings or wires between the rows of machines, forming long festoons of peril. The smallest blaze runs like wild-fire through an arrangement of this sort and the whole room may be in flames, apparently, in less time than it takes to write it. This condition is full of danger and it should be made the subject of municipal or State prohibition. I have frequently seen such a state of affairs in workshops both during working hours and after they were closed for the night. At the latter time the danger to life was, of course, eliminated, but the setting was ideal for the start of a fire from any of a hundred and one possible causes, and the chances were that it would gain dangerous headway before anything material could be done to stop it. In addition to laws concerning these special risks and classes of buildings, and a dozen others which LAW MAKING 339 could be mentioned, general laws which have bearing on the fire hazard are greatly to be desired. Under this had would fall the regulation of congestion of population, the proper maintenance of streets and the conferring of very full powers of right of way upon all the apparatus of the fire department. But more important, perhaps, than any of the special or general laws in themselves, is the matter of the attitude of the authorities toward fire in the degree of law enforcement which prevails in the par- ticular community. The whole purpose of a law is obviously rendered futile if it be not rigidly en- forced and lived up to. Citizens should know that if they infringe the regulations of the city in which they live, the punishment which they have mer- ited will not be delayed, or even avoided alto- gether by the shifting of responsibility among the Carious powers whose duty it is to bring them to justice. Much of the value of a heavy penalty for lawlessness or law evasion in fire matters lies in the promptitude and certainty with which it is in- flicted. The reflex, to be effective in the special case and as a deterent in future cases, should be immediate. To anyone who studies the matter impartially it must be apparent that the reason Berlin has but one- 340 FIRE PREVENTION forty-seventh the annual fire loss of Chicago, a city of almost equal population, cannot be merely that the German city is better built or provided with a better fire department. Indeed, many of the for- eign fire-fighting appliances are little better than their name in their native tongue, " squirts," implies. The reason is to be sought in a very different di- rection. It is closely bound up with the attitude of the authorities toward the fire risk; with the strin- gent rules which are implacably enforced, and with the dread of having a fire on his premises, for other than mere financial reasons, which the citizen of Berlin has thus developed. Force of example is as much of a power in fire prevention as in any other department of life, and nothing will do more to reduce fire losses than a few convictions for carelessness or lawbreaking of a wilful nature. More such convictions would be an inestimable boon to this country; but they can- not be had until, first, we have the laws to break, and, secondly, until we have the courage and the ma- chinery to enforce those laws. It is for this reason chiefly that I believe the legislator and the law- drafter, the compilers of building codes and the makes of fire prevention regulations, have at once a heavy responsibility and an unusual opportunity to LAW MAKING 341 be of real service to their fellow men in this country. Let them approach their task in the serious spirit for which it calls, and let them do their work unin- fluenced by any considerations, political or other- wise, and under the advice and guidance of experts in these matters, and they will go far toward putting the United States in the position among the nations which she should hold, that of not merely the great- est builder and the most rapid expender in all the lines of industry, but of the greatest conserver, as well, of the fruit of energies which she has expended and the great work which she has done. THE END INDEX INDEX Alarm boxes in New York, 208-209 boxes, location and mark- ings, 58 "manual" type, 137 devices, 133 system, wiring for, 59 system of New York City, 156 system, watchmen, 141-143 system, private, 79 systems, maintenance of, 61 Alarms, automatic, 133-148 responding to, 171, 185 transmitted by sprinkler system, 131 Apparatus, combination for small cities, 48 for city departments, 174 for private organizations, 81 primitive, 55 required for small towns, 52-53 Architects, marine, for plan- ning fire-boats, 236 Arson, epidemics of, 302 prevalence and difficulty in detecting, 292-294 Ashes, proper disposal of, 26 Assignment of fire com- panies, 170 Austin, William D., on cost of dwellings, 18 Austria, fire loss per capita, 4 Authority of fire depart- ments, 167 of fire marshals, 290 of fire prevention bureaus, 281 Automatic doors for fire walls, 106 fire alarms, 40, 133-138 Automobiles, 177 Axes and hooks for fire pre- vention, 144 B "Backing out" orders, 196 Baltimore fire, non-standard couplings in, 65 Baltimore's great fire, 42 Belts for firemen, 196 Berlin fire losses, 6 great fire of 1405, 41 method of fire investigation, 287 Boards of Fire Commission- ers, 161 Boilers for fire-boats, 241 Boston Chamber of Com- merce, report on small house construction, 17 Boston's great fire, 42 Braithwaite, George, builder of first steam fire en- gine, 207 Building codes, 330 Buildings, heights, regulation of, 97 345 346 INDEX Bulletins of Underwriters' Laboratories, 319 Bunker arrangements for fire- boats, 242 Bureaus of fire prevention, organisation, duties and powers, 273-282 Bursting hose, 194 Candles should be tabooed, 25 Causes of fires in Nebraska, 30-33 of fires, investigating, 286 Cellars, regulations for, 328 ventilating fires in, 190 Checking fires by tearing down buildings, 54 Chemical engines for small cities, 49 fires, 197 Chicago fire losses, 5 incidents of incendiarism, 303-305 plant of Underwriters' La- boratories, 313 wooden buildings in, 22 Chicago's great fire, 42 Chief merits of sprinkler systems, no vs. Commissioner in New York City, 162 Chimney fires, 199 Cincinnati fire losses, 5 Civil Service in fire depart- ments, 152 Cleaning fluids, proper care of, 27 Clocks, recording, 141-143 Collingwood, O., school house fire, 337 Combination ^ apparatus for small cities, 48 Commissioners, Boards of Fire, 161 Commissioners vs. Chief in New York City, 162 Concrete houses, 18 Constantinople, great fire in, 41 Construction cost vs. fire losses, 3 in Europe in i8th century, 45 of fire-boats, 241 of fire walls, -04 of flues, 26 of pressure tanks, 128 of proper fire escapes, 98- 100 regulations, in New York, 21 ; Philadelphia, 21 ; Pittsburgh, 21 ; Chicago, 22 Control of fire departments, 162-167 Cost of maintenance of fire- boats, 258 of service of Underwriters' Laboratories, 321-322 of sprinkler system, 118 of various types of houses, 17 Couplings, 63, 64 standard, advantages of, 65- 66; specifications for, 67 Croker, Richard, 203 Defective flues, 25 Defects of fire escapes, 98 of fire walls, 106 Discipline in fire departments, 160 Docks for fire-boats, 252 Door, fire, 72 Doors, forcing, 189 should swing outward, 95 Double company stations, 172 Drilling private fire com- panies, 76 INDEX 347 Drills, and inspections in vol- unteer departments, 53 for employes, 86, 90 Drivers, duties of, 185 Driving to fires, 186 Dry pipe sprinkler systems, 125 Duties of bureaus of fire pre- vention, 274 of fire inspectors, 276 of fire marshals, 285 of truck companies, 188 Dwelling construction, false economy, 16 Dwellings, fire retardants in, 35 fire-resistant vs. wooden, 18-19 improper materials used in, 15 standpipes m, 35 treatment of incipient fires in, 33-35 Wired glass windows for, 36 Economy of sprinkler sys- tems, 118 Elevators, fire-proofing, 72; as danger points, 145 Electric fires, 198 wiring for private houses, 2 5 wiring, regulation of, 330 Elimination of wood in high buildings, 268, 271 Ellsworth Zouaves, 204 Engine company tools, 179 house, routine duties, 51-52 tenders, 175 Engineers, duties of in pri- vate departments, 78 Engines for fire-boats, 237, 243 pumping, 174 England, fire loss per capita, 4 Epidemics of arson, 302 Equipment for fire-boats, 252 Equitable building fire, 265 Ericson, Capt. John, 207 European fire departments, 6 fire investigations, 6, 287 vs. American building con- struction in the i8th cen- tury, 45 Exit facilities in large build- ings, 96-97, 1 06 Explosives, storing and han- dling, 325 Extinguishers for dwellings, 33 for factories, 72 Extinguishing fires in dwell- ings, 33-35 oily fires, 34 F Factory employes, drilling, 13 fire protection, f 69-83 Fatalities, causes "of, 85 Feeble-minded incendaries, 306 Feed pipes of sprinkler sys- tems, 124 Fees of Underwriters' Labor- atories, 316 Fighting chimney fires, 199 fires, height limit, 262 fires with a fire-boat, 256 fires without water, 197-198 oil fires, 199 Fire alarm boxes, 58 alarm boxes in New York City, 209 alarm devices, 133 alarm systems, 50-51 alarm systems of New York, 156 alarm systems, wiring, 59 alarm, telephone as, 37 alarms, automatic, 133-148 alarms, manual, 138-148 348' INDEX Fire alarms transmitted by sprinkler systems, 130 alarms, promptness neces- sary in sending in, 40 alarms, public boxes, 58 and steel construction, 268 apparatus, evolution of, 42 ^apparatus for city, 174 Fire-boats, 235-259 company quarters, 253 cost of maintenance, 258 designing, 237 docks for, 252 construction of, 239-24* equipment, 252 hose for, 250 lighting plants for, 245 pumps for, 242, 244, 246 routine on, 254 steering mechanism, 245 Fire causes in New York City, statistics, 29 companies, assignments of, 170 companies, knowledge of districts necessary, 158 companies, priate, drilling, engine, first in America, 206 engine, first steam, 207 engine, old hand type, 208 engines, 174 engines, Philadelphia's first, 42 equipment for high build- ings, 264-266 escapes, 98 escapes, futility of, IO escapes, tower pattern, 100 extinguishers for resi- dences, 33 dangers common in factor- ies, 107 department a path to politi- cal success, 203 department control, 162-167 department, details of or- ganisation, 169 Fire department of New York City, 149-152 department, proper authority and powers, 167 department uniforms, 180 departments, books of rules, I 59 departments, civil service , in, 153 departments, discipline in, 160 departments for small towns, 38-68 departments, personnel of, 156 departments, private, 73 departments, volunteer, 46 drills, 86, 90 fighting methods, 191 great historical, 41 house registers, 60 limits in New York City, 21' limits in Philadelphia, 21 losses, statistics, 3 marshals, 273-21 marshals, duties of, 285 marshals, States providing for, 290 marshals, powers of, 290 ordinance, first American, 205 pails in residences, 34 panics, ^13, 85, 88 prevention bureaus, 273-291 prevention bureaus, author- ity of, 281 prevention bureaus, politics in, 282 prevention regulations, 279 Fireproof construction, 267 definition of, 8 Fire-resistant house, cost of, 18 -resistant vs. wooden dwell- ings, 18-19 -retardant construction of factories, 72-75 -retardant paints, 36 INDEX 349 Fire-retardant whitewash, 37 Fire-retardants in dwelling construction, 35 Fire trucks, 175 walls, importance of, 104 watch tower system abolish- ed in New York City, 205 Fires, driving to, 186 investigating causes of, 286 simultaneous, methods of handling, 173 First American fire ordinance, 205 fire alarm telegraph system in New York City, 210 fire engine in America, 206 leather hose in America, 206 self-propelled fire engine, 208 steam fire engine, 207 Flues, defective, 25 Force of New York City fire department, 150 Forcing doors and windows, 190 Frankfort, Germany, fire losses, 5 France, fire loss per capita, 4 Franklin, Benjamin, on fires, 42; on European con- struction, 45 Frame buildings, prohibition of, 13 Fuel wagons, 178 Furnace for rubbish disposal, 30 Gas lights as origin of fires, 25 Gasolene, dangers from, 28 fire engines, 174 German fire loss per capita, 4 Gulick, James, 204 H Hand engines, 208 Headquarters in small cities, routine in, 50-52 Heads of fire prevention bur- eaus, 283 Height of buildings, regulat- ing, 97 Height limit for buildings, 260 Helmets for firemen, 198 High buildings, fighting fire in, 261-264 buildings, proper fire equip- ment for, 264-266 pressure service and insur- ance rates, 233 pressure system controls three simultaneous fires, 228 pressure system of Manhat- tan, 217 pressure system tests in Manhattan, 225-226 Hodge's model of fire engine, 208 Hook and ladder companies, private, 75 and ladder companies, tools for, 179 Horses vs. motors as tractors, 174 Hose, bursted, 194 first fire hose in America, 206 for fire-boats, 250 for standpipes, 144 proper and improper, 62 rollers, 194 stretching in, 187 Hot ashes origin of fires, 26 Hydrants, selection of, 223 Incendiarism for gain, 298 in New York City, 293 350 INDEX Incendiarism incident in Chi- cago, 303-305 Incendiary fire in Waterbury, Conn., 308 Incident at a Westchester County fire, 54 illustrating the value of New York's high pressure system, 227 of roof dangers, 195 of simultaneous fires, 173 of value of sprinkler sys- tem, 114 Inflammable liquids in homes, 28 Insignia of rank in New York Fire Department, 183 Inspection of alarm system, 61 Inspectors of fire prevention bureaus, 276 Installation of high pressure service in New York, 217 of thermostats, 134 Insurance rates and high pres- sure service, 233 Investigation of causes of fires, 286-288 of fires in Europe, 6 Ireland, fire loss, per capita, 4 Italy, fire loss, per capita, 4 K Kerosene lamps, 25 Labels of the Underwriters' Laboratories, 322 Ladder lines, 195 Ladders, 175 Lamps, fires from, 25 Latta, A. B., steam fire engine builder, 207 Laws for fire prevention, 310- 340 Laws prohibiting non-safety matches, 324 Lay, William L., inventor of self-propelled fire engine, 208 Laying hose lines, 187 Leaves of absence, 184 Lighthouse Board's formula for fire-retarding white- wash, 37 Lighting plant for fire-boats, 245 Limiting height of buildings, 260 Local fire departments, 38-68 Location of alarm boxes, 58 of " manual ' 'type alarm boxes, 138 of sprinkler heads, 121-124 London fire apparatus, 6 fire losses, 5 Times sketch of New York fire department, 202 London's great fire, 41 Loft building, description of usual type, 87 building fire protection, 69- 83 M Maintenance of fire-boats, 258 Manhattan's fire alarm needs, 213 high pressure system, 217 Manual type fire alarm boxes, 137, 140 Marking location of alarm boxes, 58 Matches, fire dangers from, 24 non-safety, laws prohibit- ing, 324 Methods of fighting fires, 191 of incendiarism, 299-301 Metropolitan fire district es- tablished in New York, 205 INDEX Military organisation of fire departments 168 Motives for incendiarism, 306 Motor apparatus vs. horse- drawn, 48, 174 Moving picture theatres, fire regulations for, 336 N National fire losses, 2 standard coupling, 66-67 Nebraska, report of Fire Mar- shal Randall, 30-33 New Orleans fires from de- fective flues, 26 New York City departmental control, 162 fire alarm boxes, 209 fire alarm system, 156, 210 fire department, 149-152; in 1865, 204 fire department, insignia of rank, 183 fire department develop- ment and defects, 201-215 fire department uniforms, fire limits, 21 first fire alarm telegraph, 210 incendiarism, 293 installation of high pressure service, 217 obsolete fire alarm system, 214 percentage of fires to popu- lation, 4 value of sprinkler systems in, 114-115 New York's great fire, 42 Newark, N. J., factory fire, 107 Non-smoking, rules for, 106 Notices to owners and lesses, 280 Nozzles, various types of, 191 Office building fire protection, 69-83 Oil fires, 199 Oily fires, methods of extin- guishing, 34 Orders to pumping stations, methods of transmitting, 232 Organisation, details of, 169 of fire-boats companies, 253 of fire prevention bureaus, 275 of New York City fire de- partment, 151 Organising private fire de- partments, 73-79 Outlets for hydrants, 224 Outside alarms, 60 Outward swinging doors, 95 Overhead wires, 59 Over-heated chimneys, 26 Paid vs. volunteer fire depart- ments, 50 Paints, fire-retarding, 36 Panics at loft fires, 85, 88 Paris, fire losses in, 5 Per capita fire losses, 4-5 Percentage of fires to popu- lation, 4 Personnel of fire departments, 156 Philadelphia fire limits, 21 first fire engine in, 42 founding of Union Fire Company, 44 wooden buildings in, 22 Pittsburgh, dwelling construc- tion, 22 Planning a fire-boat, 239 Politics and bureaus of fire prevention, 282 352 INDEX and fire departments, 203 Powers of fire departments, 167 Precautions to be taken in loft buildings, 05 Pressure-regulating valves, 229 Pressure tanks, 127 Preventive laws, 310-340 measures for private houses, 23-29 Primitive fire-fighting appara- tus, 55 sprinkler systems, III Private alarm systems, 79 fire companies, apparatus for, 81 fire companies, drilling, 76 fire companies, relations to public departments, 82 fire departments, 73 houses, fire prevention measures for, 23-29 salvage corps, 80 Protecting elevator shafts, 146 Pumping stations, high pres- sure in Manhattan, 219 stations, routine operation of, 231 Pumps for fire-boats, 242, ^^ 246 Pyromaniacs, 294-298 Q Qualifications for heads of fire prevention bureaus, 283-285 of watchmen, 143 Quarters for fire-boat com- panies, 253 R Randell, C A., refuse fur- nace, 30 Reading. Pa., no wooden buildings in, 22 Registers for fire houses. 60 Regulating height of build- in MS. 97 Regulations against rubbish, 327 for collars, 328 for electric wiring. 330 for fire prevention, 279 for places of amusement, 336 for school houses, 337 for tenement houses, 335 Repair wagons, 178 Reports of Underwriters' La- boratories, 314 Responding to alarms, ^2, 171, 185 Rewards for conviction of incendiaries, 309 Rochester, causes of fires in, 26 Roof lines. 104 Routine for fire-boats. 254 Rubber hose, 64; first used, 206 Rubbish, dangers from, 30 disposal system, 30 in factories, 106 regulations against, 327 should be removed, 13 the origin of fires, 24 Rules for fire departments. 150 Russia, fire loss per capita, 4 Saint Petersburg's legal limit to height of buildings, 97 Salvage corps, private. 80 San Francisco's great fire, 42 wooden buildings, 22 Saskatoon, Canada. 40 School houses, regulations for, 337 Screws, twin vs. single, for fire-boats, 238 Search lights, 176 I N I)K \ 353 firCS, mrllio.1'. of ing, 172 Sellars & I'ollo, k, makers ..I first IMC lisr, 206 Shafts, elevator, as danger points, 145 Shingle roofs, dangers of, 16 Shutters, metal, 72 Siamese connections, 197 Singer building lire, 269 Small house construction, 17- 19 Small town fire departments, needs of, 56; apparatus required, 52-53 towns, routine at fire houses, 50-52 Smoking should be prohibit- ed, 13 Social features of volunteer fire departments, 46 Specifications for standard couplings, 67 Spiral chute fire escapes, 101 Spontaneous combustion, 27 Sprinkler heads, location of, 121-124 systems, 109-132 systems, economy of, 118 systems, installation of, no, 120 systems, pipes for, 124 systems, primitive, in systems, the dry pipe type, 125 systems, valuable service in Rochester fire, 114 systems, water supply for, 128 Sprinklers as fire alarms, 130 for windows, 129 Stairways, fireproofing, 73 size and numbers, 96 Standard couplings, 65-67 Standpipes and hose, 144 for private dwellings, 35 States with fire marshal laws, 290 Statistics of fire causes In New York City, ay of fire IOHCI, 3 Steam fire engine!, Braith- waite's, 207; Eric; 207; Hodge's, 208; Lat- ta's, 208; Lay's, 209 miiu: C;I|,;.MI/ l-,i f.n boats, 242 Steel construction, 267 Steering mechanism for fire- boats, 245 Stovepipes, dangers from, 26 Stretching in hose. 187 Summoning special apparatus, 171 Supervision of Underwriters' Laboratories, 320 System of Underwriters' La- boratories, 317 Tanks for water supply, 127 Tappers in homes of chiefs, 61 Tearing down buildings to check fires, 54 Tenders, 175 Tenement house laws, 331-335 Telephone, use of as fire alarm, 38 Testing alarm system, 61 high pressure system in New York, 225 hydrants, 223 station of Underwriters' La- boratories, 313 Theatres, fire regulations or, 336 Thermostats, 133 Time-recording devices for watchmen, 141-143 Tools for fire departments, 179 Toronto fire losses, 6 Tower type of fire escapes, 100 Triangle Waist Co. fire, 89 Truck companies, duties of, 1 88 354 INDEX Trucks, 175 Tweed, William M., 203 Twin screws vs. single screws for fire-boats, 238 Types of manual fire alarms, 140 U Underground wires, 59 Underwriters' regulations for sprinkler heads, 124 Laboratories, 311-322 National Board and incen- diaries, 308 Uniforms, 180 Union Fire Company, Phila- delphia, founding of, 44 United States per capita fire loss, 4 Valves for hydrants, 224 pressure-regulating, 229 Ventilating burning buildings, 189 cellar fires, 190 Volunteer department of New York City in 1865, 204 ^ departments, drills and in- spections, 53 vs. paid fire departments, 50 fire departments, 46 W Wagons for officers, 177 Waste paper in residences, 26 Watch clocks, 141-143 Watchmen for fire protection, 141 qualifications for, 143 Water damage, 193 effects of on hot iron, or steel, 198 mains, controlling pressure in, 228 mains, high pressure in New York, 219-222 pressure, controlling, 229 supply for cities, 157 supply for sprinkler sys- tems, 126 tanks, 127 towers, 176; limits of for effective work, 261 walls, 200 when not to use, 197-198 Waterbury incendiary fires, 308 Wax tapers, dangers from, 25 Westchester County fire, inci- dent at, 54 Whinery, C. C, sketch of New York fire department, 202 Whitewash, fire retardant, 37 Window sprinklers, 129 Windows, forcing, 190 Wired glass windows, 35 Wiring fire houses, 60 for fire alarm system, 59 Wires, overhead, 59 Wooden buildings in Chicago, 22; in Pittsburgh, 22; in San Francisco, 22; in Reading, 22 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FORVpAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. 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