The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-06-14
THE FIRE.
A Practical Hint Suggested to an
Onlooker by it's Progress and
by the Manner of Dealing
with 1t.

Editor Butte MINER:
DEAR SIR: Among the suggestions more
or less practical sure to be called forth nv
THIS mornings fire, perhaps you may be able
TO maze room for one which occurred to the
writer While observing the earnest, but only
1ndlfferently successful efforts of our hook
and ladder company.
Every practically organized fire protective
association is of a tw o-fold character. having
for its object: First, the extinguishing of fire:
ana secondly-the prevention of the spread
OF hre. Or these, the former is the office of
the hre company, proper the latter, that of
the NOOK ana ladder company, and it is here,
ID the field of the hook and ladder company
thai modern science has provided us with a
powerful instrumentality of which We have
not yet availed ourselves. In preventing the
spread OF fire nothing is more common than
the necessity of pulling down houses and re-
moving the debris, but this, at least the first
step III the operation is generally a slow and
dlfficult undertaking. Only one house can be
attacked at a time, and if it be strongly con-
s%tructed, or if the wind be blowing briskly
from the scene of the conflagration, it may
happen Gas indeed it frequently does) that
the advancing flames reach the building in
question and drive the hook and ladder boys
from their labors before they have even sue
>~SeSe ~ putting IL ouS W pltCtS. On
the other hand, when once pulled down and
broken up, the largest house can be removed
limos instantly by the thousands OF busy
hands always ready to help-aIways eager to
do their best towards preventing the disas-
trOus extension of any fire at Butte.
Here then the idea must suggest itself that
if we were provided with the means of in.
simultaneously reducing a strongly-built house
TO a pile of %broken-up debris this achieve
ment would constitute an immense ad.
vance on the present systematic system ac-
cording to which a building is slowly and la
boriously pulled apart with hooks. And in
GIANT POWDER we are literally provided
with precisely the means needed for the pur-
pose. If our Hook aud Ladder Company
were enlarged by the addition Of a Giant
Powder corps, composed of men thoroughly
familiar with the nature OF that
powerful explosive, aud un.er the Or
ders of a cool-headed ~captain-such a
corps could instantaneously reduce to
ruins not only one house OF building
OF any kind, but a dozen such buildings, or
as many in fact as the Judgment of the chief
engineer might lead him to doom 4 sacrifice
to the salvation of the remainder of the city.
In obedience to the orders of an experienced
captain, the charges could all be put in place
at the same moment aud fired simultaneously
while the probability of an accident would
be guarded against by the practical knowledge
of the captain, whose experience would teach
him the precise quantity Of the explosive re-
quired in each instance. So that neither more
nor less that tie quantity required might be
employed in any given case. The danger of
''niissiug a shot, could be obviated by pro-
viding a double charge and double fuse for
each blast. But these with other practical
details can be left for subsequent considera-
ton. In the meantime | beg leave to offer
through the MINER, for the consideration of
our fire brigade, the foregoing general out
line of what, in competent hands. might p. owe
a real step in advance III the all-important
science of controlling and ~extinguishing city
fires.
BUTTE, Thursday, June 8, 81.
CITIZEN.