Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-09-08
FIRES IN NEW YORK
Statistics Show $500 ConfIa-
grations Each Year.
MANY DUE TO CIGARETTES
Coffin. Nail" Stumps and Matches
Cost City $2,50o,oo0.
FIREMEN BUSY ON TUESDAYS
Ironing Day Produces More Alarms
Than Any Cther-Dinner Time
Most Fiery Hour. .



| For carelessly dropped cigarettes and
matches New York city pays in fire losses
| the tidy sum of $500, 900 in a single year
If the other causes of New Yorks twenty
| three daily fres-defective, or mismanaged
| heating and lighting apparatus and ma
chinery, badly constructed buildings, greasy
waste, hot ashes and similar fire encour-
asers-are taken into account, 1he bill for
| fooling with fire in New York is so, 100000
| a year. distributed among $500 different
| alarms. This figure, based upon the official
! fire patrol reports, does not, however, In
| cude $415, 900 paid directly by the tax
| payer for damage to fire department prop
| erty. For every time the fire bell rings In
| this city and the appa ratuS goes out, even
for false alarm, 1t costs at least 500 Tor
! damage to trucks and strain on the val
| liable fire horses. Nor does it include half
| a million dollars of damage to asphalt pave
| ments from childrens bonfres.
This annual fire loss has grown to such
proportions that boards of underwriters and
also the fire patrols making an elab-
crate study of the causes of fires. In fact
they take the fever temperature of New
York's buildings as carefully as physician
follows the fever line of a typhoid patient.
And these observations are charted care
fully by expert statisticians and made the
subject Of deep study by pyro-sreciaists
The most recent of these yearly charts,
covering 6,357 fires In the boroughs of Man
haitian and the Bronx, which did over
| 100000 damage, gives some peculiar sta
tistics.
Ironing ay Busy One.
The most fiery day of the week in New
| York is ironing day-Tuesday-wh $3.50
| fires occurred, due partly to the ranges and
gas stoves being kept at full blast with
| piles of dry clothes around them. The
busiest hour of the day for firemen is the
dinner hour, to I o'clock, when an aver
| age of J21 alarms come in. At this time
| factories and offices have just been desert
| ed. and whatever has been left amiss has
! time to finish sInoldering and burst into
flame. The busiest month is January, when
coal is piled in to get more heat. This
month has 635 fires to it's credit, though
| November, with its election celebrations
| and the necessity of using more light and
| giving heating apparatus its first really
| good test, is a close second with G24 fires
| to its diScredit
| Recreation hours seem to be the time of
| the day when the bulk of the fires occur,
and the period from midnight to in the
| morning the lightest. For but SG6 fires are
! charged TO early morning, while 2,.tJG oc-
| CURED between o clock and midnight; .g37
| We're at the shopping and matinee hours
! from noon to 6 o'clock; and LBS happened
between breakfast and luncheon And this
| idea is further borne out by the fact that
| the second highest figure for the week, 932
Is for Sunday, when the people are a,
church off on outings.
| The special frequency of fires between 6
| o'clock and midnight is attributable to a
number of causes. In the first place, dur
| ing these hours more lights are burning
than at any other time. Open fires are
| lighted; there is more smoking of cigars al
| cohol chafing dishes are very much in req
J uisition. All of these things mean that
| matches are more used then than at any
| other time of the day Factories and
stores are deserted, and If there has been
any fire seed sown before O'Clock it may
| be expected to terminate before midnight
| tbe ST at LID
| with people who are careless about letting
| matches lighted cigars fall into door
| ways or in. rubbish around the doOrWays
| of shops.
Gags" Get in Their Work.
| Then, too, not a few good fellows begin
! to be taken home a little the worse for
| wear about this time, and try to hic-light
| the-hic-gas and when the match burns
| their fingers, drop it on the bed or in Il
| waste paper basket. But especially at this
| time are homes without their adults Mr.
| and Mrs. New. ywed-are at the theater and
| their fiat Is vacant save for Annie Green
| horn Father and mother and sister and
| brother are at supper in d "urant, or al
a place of amusement, anu the little chIl-
| dren, after nurse has gone TO bed, wake
up and want a light and get the matches
and also the fire engines. And fires In
| ash barrels down cellar, and smo- dering
| fues, like mice, prefer to come out when
| no is about.
The fires after midnight are. in many
| cases, modesty fires. the baby wakes uI
| and mother in dishabiile rises to attend to
him. She strikes match and then real
| ICES that the shades are up. So before she
lights the gas she goes, lighted match in
hand, to the window to pull down the shade
and, Of course, seepily sets fire 10 the lace
| curtains This is not very effective q
measure of modesty, because soon mother
| and the whole family probably taking
| a trip down the fire escape without any
tn 1rGG IN
The worst monetary damage by fire was
| in December, January and February, when
81 93S $50 of loss occurred. The low est
month for loss is September, when the chill
dren go to school again, though the fewest
! fires occur in August. The summer when
no heating apparatus Is used and feWeSt
lights are burned, is the time when there is
least damage to buildings Of the summer
months, July had the most fires, SOB, and
of these many were contributed by the
Fourth of July fireworks. but, apparently
because every one expects fires and
about the Fourth and is very watchful
| the damage was very low.
These facts to the time of fires, witt
other elaborate data, are collected by tn.
| fire insurance companies for the purpose o.
| establishing their rates.
Training Fire Engineers"
The work of collecting all this materia
| has created a demand for men with a new
kind of technical training in architecture, in
dustries and infiammable and explosive
materials in their relationship to fire haz
ards; in short the fire engineer.
The universities are already beginning Il
: meet this demand by giving special course!
on fire science Almost any Saturday after
noon in the winter enc can see a group O.
men climbing around New Yorks unfinished
skyscrapers. factories and tenements, study
ing, under the direction of an engineer from
the insurance board the points which maxi
. building safe or unsafe in the eyes of the
pyro- spe cialists These men are students II
the night course on fire insurance, given a
the Washington Square building of New
, York University, by E. r. Hardy. specials
of the New York fire underwriters.
For the most part these structure climb
ers are Insurance agents and clerks VIII,
wish to become inspectors and fire engi
neers A number of them, however, ar
| though