The age-herald., 1901-01-15
FIRE, FIRE, FIRE,
 AND ITS FIGHTING Birmingham Department Hope IeSsly Behind and Inadequate THE WORN OUT OLD ENGINES Not Even Backed Up by Hook and Ladder-Some Crying Needs.
 No Good Risks-Chief
 Mullin Talks.
THE WORN OUT OLD ENGINES

Through a comparatively small outlay on the fire department Birmingham would be raised by the fire insurance companies from three-quarter rate city to city of the first-class risk" said Chief Mulln of the Birmingham Fire Department yester- | day.
 "The Southeastern Tariff Association sometime ago made a proposition to the city government of Birmingham that if two additional fire stations were put in and properly equipped the rating would be | at once raised to that of first-class city. That is as much as to say that, whereas
 person now insuring for thousand dol- | lars. by way of example, receives, in event
 of total loss by fire, s750, and so on pro- | portionally in all sums insured. In other l words, property owners in Birmingham | sre compelled by the insurance companies l to carry about 25 per cent. of their own | insurance. If the proposition of the insur- | ance tariff association were adopted a 1 property owner could insure $10, 000 in prop | erty for $10,000, and in event of total loss 1 of such property by fire the owner would receive $10,000. And the cost to the insured | would be no greater than 1t Is now, when l he Is protected to only three-quarters of his
 insured values. This will show at glance 1 what an enormous benefit it would be to l Birmingham to be raised to the first-class | as insurance risk.
 "The cost of the two additional fire sta- | tions required by the Southeastern Tariff Association would be s12,0OO year. The
 initial cost would be somewhere about the | same, maybe little more or little less. "The greatest direct and instant need of l the fire department is, I would say, l hook and ladder truck in service The city
 owns such a fire-fghting machine for | which 1t paid $3200; but it was long ago put out of use and laid up under shed,
 the City Council holding that it could not
 afford to retain the four or five men nec-
 essary to man this hook and ladder truck.
 That a city of the size, importance and
 wealth of Birmingham should have no
 hook and ladder truck amongst the equip
 ment of its fire department is startling | fact
 When people of Birmingham see us suc-
 cessfully fighting dangerous fires, which
 might destroy a million dollars in lew
 hours they accept as fact that we arc
 fighting it with good and powerful engines 1 That is a grave error. Our fire engines are old badly worn, and hopelessly out Of 1 date The engine that Is least old has been in use fourteen years, and in that time 1t l has pumped out very nearly every cellar l in Birmingham, it seems to me. When | cellar is flooded call out the fire engines! | That sort of work is very damaging to the engines, as anybody may understand. "The engines of the Birmingham Fire De-
 partment were made to pump from 30o to $50 gallons of water each minute They are so old and worn out that now they 1 actually pump only 150 to 175 gallons
 minute.
 1.-The latest improved engines, which cost 1 about what ours did-say $4,500 each-do
 rot weigh any more than those we have,
 but they each pump about 800 gallons
 minute. Thus one of the new engines | would do more work than two of ours
 These new engines are marvels of simpli-
 city in mechanical makeup, while those we
 have are complicated, easily gotten out of
 order, and very difficult to repair. One of
 them has perhaps two hundred pieces all 1 told more than are in one of the new en- l zines.
 Our firemen are remarkably successful | in putting out fires, but their success de- l penQS upon lHtlT ullSAdIHpleu SWlltueSS III | getting to the fires and knowing how 10 | get at the seat of the flames and fighting | them with extra ordinary skill and knowl- | edge of the work; but the work on the
 men is terrible and the danger always 1 great. But once a great fire gets under
 headway, our appliances are as futile as
 showers of rain.
 Yet one big fire might cost the city in
 taxes and licenses enough to increase the
 fire department to the fullest extent de-
 manded by the insurance companies. Take
 the Caldwell Hotel fire and its direct con
 sequences! How many thousands of dol
 lars have that fire cost the taxpayers of
 Birmingham in all these years? Enough
 I fancy, to buy a dozen of the newest en- | zines and pay men to work them. | "Only thirty-one men are employed in
 the Birmingham fire department. Atlanta,
 with just little over twice our popula- | tion, and covering less territory so far as | the fire department is concerned, has 110 | regular firemen and thirty substitutes
 who attend fires, making 40 firemen for
 SS,0O0. population as compared to thirty-one
 for Birmingham's 10000 population, and the
 fire limits of Atlanta are much more com
 pact than Birmingham's are actually, be- | cause We never refuse to go to a fire on | account of it being out of the prescribed | limits
 "An these facts have been persistently | urged upon our Mayor and Council, but it | has been held that the city didn't have the | money to make the improvements and l nobody in Birmingham needs to be told that | hitherto the city has been very hard up | for money. The question is simply, is it
 economy or saving of money in any sense | to suffer the fire department to remain so
 badly crippled?''
 l Gen. Louis V. Clark, leading insurance | agent, was asked what he thought about it. | In the main his facts were identical with | those of Chief Mullin, whom the whole pop
 ulation knows to be a remarkably good fire | chief.
 "The trouble is, the city has raised the tax on insurance companies from $100 to | S2OO, just doubling the burden, and yet no l additional protection whatever has been