Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-02-27

office and the insurance people, is ascer-
tanned to a certainty.
Spontaneous combustion / have found
to be very common cause OF lire. OILED
waste or cloth wrapped up and thrown
into closet or confined space has start
ed many big blaze. This is likely To
happen where Workmen are engaged OH
the premises or III factories where ma
chinists are employed.
Electric wires have often caused fires.
and lamps and lanterns are responsible
for an astonishing number. The famous
fire which occurred at the residence OF
Secretary of the Navy Tracy. in which
three lives were lost, and in which
barely succeeded in saving the life of
Mr.. Tracy by carrying him to window,
was attributed to the explosion of a lamp
on the first floor A striking circumstance
resp ecting this fire was the fact that 1t
was discovered by a passerby. When this
man rushed frantically up the front
steps to give the alarm the flames were
bursting out of the windows of the first
floor. The door was answered by the
collected. MY God, man, don't you see
the place is on fret exclaimed the pedes-
trian. Then the alarm spread with the
flames The butler, it appeared, had been
engaged in laying the breakfast table.
quite unconscious of the fire almost at
his elbow!
1T may seem a queer thing to say, but
l have found that iron about a building
is one of the most dangerous things in
case of fire. Since iron Orders have
and more destructive than in the good
old days of the Georgia pine twelve by
twelve. Such a girder would char for a
week, while its iron successor will buc-
kle up and tear down the walls. A strik-
ing example of the way iron acts in a
fire was shown by the Pennsylvania ave-
nue. power house fire here number OF
years ago. All the principal Orders and
beams of this building were of iron, hui
there was SO much wood about it that
though 1t was called 'freproof building,
worse firetrap couldn't have been con-
structed. The complete ruin effected by
the flames, however, was due. in my
opinion. to the iron rather than to the
wood
-
Apart from the mechanism OF old mill
wheels igniting woodwork, the recent
Paris food demonstrated in at least one
instance that water can cause fire under
certain circumstances. The first floor OF
machine shop was covered to a depth
of about two feet. The water rose very
rapidly, and. there being large amount
Of iron turliings mixed with wood chips
on the floor of the machine shop. the
iron turnings oxidized SO rapidly that the
heat Of the process ignited the wood and
the place was destroyed by fire.
Fires produced by the action of water
upon lime are SO frequent as not to re-
quire especial notice. save as one Of the
ordinary causes. 1t does not however
appear very likely that streams from
hose used in extinguishing fires would
prove factors for fresh blazes; yet such
results have occurred i'll at least two
instances. In one a stream upon a
small fire also met some lime in neigh
boring building. starting fire which did
not attract attention until it reached an
tor,k <hrAa ur,s,rt ,,x1f ~
other instance was in a large store In
Philadelphia, where the stream of water.
charged with carbonic acid gas discharged
from a special apparatus upon a small
fire. also served as an electric conductor
and started another fire from the arc
lighting system.
The oxidation of iron turnings is quite
frequently the cause of mysterious fires,