Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-10-10

Washington. D. c., Oct. IA new
type of frame building construction
which, without the use of any of the
so-called fire-proofing materials at
! all, will cut in two the fire hazard
to which wood dwelling houses are
exposed, has been evolved by engi-
neers employed by the lumber indus
try Of America. The announcement
comes from the National Lumber
ington, a scientific bureau devoted
to the solution of problems affecting
the industry which maintains it.
Not only will the new frame con
struction greatly add to the safety,
financial and physical, of the future
home-builders who adopt it, it is
claimed. but the discovery will have
a profound effect upon city building
regulations. With some further re-
finements not deemed necessary in
dwelling houses, the new construc-
ton has been adapted to factory and
business buildings. These plans have
! been approved by the fire insurance
underwriters, and as a result some of
the largest cities in the country. New
York among them. are considering
r~e-admitting frame construction into
fire districts for years barred to wood
en- buildings of any sort.
The. evolution of fire-resistive frame
construction was incidental to a cam
paign inaugurated some ears ago by
the lumber industry to remov from
wood the single disadvantage under
which it competed for, business in the
building -materials market. For many
years-ever since the invention of
fire-proof building construction, in
fact-lumber has been subjected to
the attacks of the makers Of fire
proof materials. Nobody could gainx
say the cheapness of wood, nor it's
beauty and comfort, nor even its dur
ability. since many OF the old colonial
mansions still in existence are made
of wood. But there has been no get
ting around the fact that wood will
burn. If you built of. woodland
three-fourths of all home, builders do
use wood-you, simply risked, losing
er of a beautiful and commodious
frame house a wished regretfully
that he could I'VE afforded to build
his home Of fire-proof materials.
In ascribing an undue fire hazard
to frame construction, the producers
Of ~fire-proofing invented no new ar
gument. They merely used what for
years has been common, belief-name-
~, that there is a direct relation be-
tween the extensive use of/frame con-
struction in the United States and the
enormous annual fire losses to which
this country Is subjected. Three Of
every four buildings in American cit
les are made OF wood throughout. The
United States has the greatest annual
fire loss of any .country in the world.
To assume that one of these facts re-
suits from the other seems to be only
putting two and two together.
Science and Fire Hazards.
But, like some other American in-
dustries producing. standard commodi-
ties which, suffer from adverse. popu-
lar opinion, the hewers and sellers
Of wood have been turning the cool
searchlight Of science upon 7thetral-
legged fire hazard resting upon frame
construction. In this column not long
ago twas shown how successful1y@the
scientist has refuted the opinton4tha
1t is dangerous to eat canned food.
Now another group Of scientists has
demonstrated beyond argument the
surprising fact that frame buildings,
are not nearly so subject to fire as
buildings Of other sorts, including the
steel7frame buildings which :
known as fire-proof
To make this demonstration, the
scientists of the technical and re-
search department OF the National
Lumber Manufacturers association
took the 1921 figures on; fires In SO
LOT the largest American cities al COM
piled by the national board Of fire un-
derwrtters. These figures, to be sure,
lshow that over half the fires In those
cities that year occurred dIr frame
buildings. but the fisure 1oseIgits ap-
parent signiflcancs when II II ret
down beetdA&thAS fact that II. three