Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-10-10

These figures bring out a point
which -observant fire chiefs have
been emphasizing for a long time
the hazard from fire results not so
much from the materials of which
the building is constructed as from
what goes on inside the building
A building may be made entirely
OF steel and brick. but If it
an automobile garage or a paint
shop or a paper-box factory or n
other ~ire-hazardous industry, a fire
building totally.
Fires Result from CareIessness
The lesson in this Tor the average
householder is that he himself and
his family constitute a large part
OF the fire hazard in his home.
Nearly half the fires in dwelling
houses result from carelessnes:
Faulty construction accounts for
nearly all the rest of them. Fires
communicated to dwelling houses
from outside sources are so few in
number as to be negligible. Even
this single roof, that ~favorite scaIe-
goat. is e~xonerated. The investiga-
ton is showing that when the cause
OF a dwelling-house fire is given as
okoA O4 4oo1I tllS 0Sd2ssy
is that a defective chimney was
the incendiary. Poor mortar, and
an insufficient quantity of that, was
probably used in the first place. The
tiues in the chimney were unlined
with tile. In time a brick drops out
OF the chimney and the adjacent
shingles catch fire at the first OF
portUnity.
The new building plans Developed
by the National Lumber Manufac-
turers' Association are designed 10
cut the demonstration fire haz-
ard in two. even c%onceding that the
house occupants continue their
carelessness. The principal features
of the new type of construction are
designed to make wooden buildings
slow-burning. A slow-burning build
ing is about all the householder can
hope for, even II he builds of fee
proof materials. The fact is that
no buildings, except perhaps steel
Il stone jails and maybe the pyra-
mids of Cheops, are abso.utely afTe-
proof. The disastrous Loop" fire
in Chicago last year ate up a SIX
teen-story steel building, and there
have been other Instances of sup
posedly absolutely fre-Droof build
ings being totally destroyed by fire
From the standpoint OF frs. the
CHER defect in frame construction
of the past has beer taat It left
between the walls and between the
ceiling OF n room and the floor of
the room above drafty open spaces
which serve as f1ues when ne house
catches on fire. A fire originating IN
the lower part of the house car
roar through these spaces. IL it
gains Roadway before discovery, and
often by the time the fremen ar
rive the building is ablaze in a dozen
places from cellar to roof.
= The new construction stops these
impromptu flues by the simple and
cheap ~expedient of blocking them
at intervals with wooden barriers.
This cuts off drafts and thus pre-
vents rapid spreading. forcing the
fire to consume its own way as ii
discovered a considerable time and
still be localized to n part of the
house.
But the model fire-resistive plans
do much more than this. They
| provide solidly framed rooms COR
ners, fiue Innings for chimneys, all
wood kept 20 inches away from fire
places, no wood within two inches
of chimneys (the spaces being filled
with loose incombustible materiais)
top of the furnace Is inches away
from the cellar ceiling and the cell
ms itself protected from the heat
below, heat pipes kept an inch away
from the woodwork and sheathed
with incombustible materials where
they pass through floors. ard
numerous other precautions.
These specifications have been
brought to the attention of archi-
tects and builders generally by
trade and technical publications
and any prospective house builder
can now have the use Of them. by
adopting this type of construction
aud with attention 20 the safety oil
the electric wiring. any home
builder can take advantage of the
~cheapness of lumber and still get q
house that in fire resistance Will
compare ~favorably with slow burn.
ing dwellings Of twice the cost.