Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-27
FIRE FIGHTERS IDEALS
PUMPING STATIONS, HIGH PRES
SURE AND STAND PIPES.
Fireproof Construction and Automatic
Sprinklers Should Be Insisted on
by City Governments.
From the Philadelphia Record.

From the Philadelphia Record.
According to the experts of the Inter-
national Association of Fire Engineers, the
prevailing methods OF fighting fires in great
cities are many years behind the times.
lsand must be revolutionized IL the ratio of
| fire losses is to be lessened. Tall buildings.
| such as are now constructed for business
| purposes even in small towns. cannot be
protected by fire departments supplied with
| regulation outfits of steam fire engines.
| trucks. hose carts and water towers. Lines
| of hose cannot be dragged up more than
| four flights Of stairs, while from the street
a fire engine stream will not penetrate a
burning building more than fifteen
twenty feet at the sixth floor Farther up
the flames may work their will without
! hindrance other than presented by auto
matte sprinklers. Thus declare the chiefs
of fire departments in the principal cities
of the United States and the British en-
pire. AS Chief Engineer Russell of Dublin,
observed: You built your cities in the
United States in hurry, and then you
burned them down. You built them up
again better than before, but they Will
Keep on burning piecemeal until you cease
to rely upon portable hose and moving en-
gines to check your contiagations."
Building Inspection.
The warning thus conveyed has been
! came familiar with the peculiarly adverse
| conditions attendant upon fire suppression
| in the closely built-up sections of populous
cities. Concentration of business quarters
has led to an inordinate demand for hign
buildings the greed of owners and build
ers and the laxity of building inspection
laws have combined to render many sky
scrapers highly intiammable. These latter
constitute a source of serious danger to
G not IN aievh1
whether presumably freproof or not Once
well started, confagration in a great city
like Philadelphia would sweep away every
thing in its pathway. Nothing but solid
granite is freproof under such conditions,
and even solid granite may be burned, as in
the great fires of Chicago and Boston.
where solid masonry crumbled into dust be-
fore the elemental heat.
Stone and Iron.
Fireproof construction, If unsparingly IN
forced by local ordinances, would go far
toward minimizing the evil of which the
fire department chiefs complain. There
many tall structures In Philadelphia that
could not possibly be set fire. In one
such, few Saturdays ago. tenant of
office locked his big rolltop desk and then
his door and hied away to the seashore TO
disport himself until Monday morning.
Returning at that time, he unlocked his
office door, but found only few blackened
where his desk and chair had been. They
had caught fire and burned up within the
interval of a brief holiday. and so swift
and complete was the work of the flames
that neither watchmen nor passers-by
knew Of the mlschance. But the tile floor
of the room, was uninjured, the building
absolutely unframed. With such Struc-
lures only to deal with life for the fire
departments of great cities would be
long holiday; but, unfortunately, they ire
exceptional. Your average sky-scrapers,
filled with inf1ammable material will burn
like tow, and it is this quick-burning crea-
ton of modern urban necessity for which
fire protection is rightfully demanded.
Clearly enough, moving fire engines, with
their puny hose equipment and trivial
streams of water. will in no wise afford the
desired security. What is necessary. in Tie
Judgment of the fire chiefs Is a system of
standpipes with lateral arms, installation
by legal compulsion of automatic sprinkler5
and, above all, independent, hgh-pressu-e
service water mains, with a powerful CEN
trail pumping plant where gravity Will not
furnish the requisite pressure.