Los Angeles herald., 1891-10-15
AFTER ALL BIG FIRES.
MEN WHO MAY BE SEEN IN THE
RUINS or A CONFEDERATION.

Strange Things Happen That Ordinary
People would Never Dream About.
The work That Firemen. Policemen.
Patrolmen and Adjusters Do.
After the fire is over, what them The
average citizen sees only heap of smok-
ing ruins and thinks that nothing re-
mains to be done but to clear them away
and build anew. But to the initiated
the details of the work are manifold.
There are four bodies of men actively
concerned with the ruins.
First, the fremen. They distrust the
red dragon He may be lurking under
any of the heaps of bricks, ready for
fresh outbreak. So they do what they
call oyerhauling. They turn over all
the smoking piles and drench the embers
and wet down the neighboring walls
and remain on guard until everything is
cold. Sometimes they have to wait
nearly a week, and their work after the
fire is very laborious, as in the Park
place fire, where so many lives were lost.
Three days after the fire was over
there were still fifty iremen at work on
the ruins getting out the bodies and
watching the place to make sure that no
flames would start up again. Many of
these fifty men worked for forty-eight
hours necessarily, with only three hours
intervals for meals. At the great fire
that destroyed the Havemeyer sugar re-
finery it was more than week before
the ruins were cold enough to be safe
Second, the police. They protect the
firemen from the crowds of citizens who
come to look on and the property res
cued from the rabble who come to loot.
They draw what is called fire line
about the burning building and keep it
up after it is burned till the work of the
firemen is done.
Third, the fire patrol. This is pro-
fessional band of property rescuers,
maintained by the insurance companies
1t was organized forty years ago, and
was then composed entirely of members
of the volunteer fire department. In
1858 it was incorporated under charter
which commissioned it to save lives and
property at fires. In the first place it
streets from 7:30 o'clock each evening
till $50 o'clock next morning looking
for fires. Now it is called to fires in the
same way as the regular fire depart
ment Its men used to wear the same
uniforms as the firemen, but there was
row over that and now they are distin-
guished by red stripes.
THE FIRE PATROL.
The men of the fire patrol go out with
trucks, one truck from each station.
Each truck carries eleven men and axes,
ladders, brooms, shovels, crowbars and
twenty-fou immense tarpaulin cover
ings, with which the fire patrol rushes
into building comparatively safe from
fire, but drenched with water, and covers
up the goods there The patrolmen
usually work under the fremen. For
instance, if there is a fire on the fourth
floor they are busy on the third floor and
the floors below covering up goods with
the terpaulins and removing them out of
the way of water.
They also follow the hose lines where
these lines run through buildings not on
fire to stop all leaks in the hose or set
buckets under the leaks or protect goods
from spray They can't tell till the fire
is over whether the property they are
saving is insured or not; therefore they
go ahead without paying any attention
to the question.
The fire patrol follow the fremen and
fix things up, saving all they can for the
insurance companies and stopping all
unnecessary damage. When the fire.
men and police have gone away the fire
patrol stays with the agents of the own
ers, guarding the goods till the insur-
ance is settled or the rescued property is
removed to place of safety.
After all is said and done at the fire
proper, come the insurance adjusters
poking about the ruins. This is small,
high priced body of shrewd and expert
enced men, whose business is to find out
on behalf of the insurance companies
how much the loss was. An insurance
adjuster will always tell you that his is
judicial function, just as district at
torney always contends that he is acting
judicially, though the prisoner may not
think SO. The insured seldom agree
with the insurance adjuster. He is sent
on behalf of the insurance companies,
and is on the watch for fraud.
TdE ADJUSIEho WOhk.
The serious work does not usually be-
gin till the ashes are cold. Insurance
companies don't take inventories of the
property insured nowadays. The con-
tents of store are constantly changing.
They wait for the insured to make out
his claim in itemized form. Then they
call for the books and the vouchers
Maybe all books and vouchers are burn
ed. In that case the memory of the
owner must do its best to supply the de-
fciency.
Frauds are frequent, and the adjusters
are usually in business for themselves
not attached to any particular company,
but hired by the job, just like lawyers or
private detectives. They have to keep
their eyes wide open.
In cases like the Park place fire, where
everything becomes heap of ruins in an
instant, and no books or papers or ma
terial evidence of any kind is left, the
adjusters have to depend on careful
scrutiny of the itemized claims; but in
numbers of other cases where the fire de-
partment does its work rapidly the adj
busters make most astonishing finds.