Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1922-10-10
FIRE HAZARD
IN HOMES is
OFTEN OWNER


of frame building construction
which, without the use of any of
| the so-called fire-proofing mate
rails at all, win cut in two the fire
| hazard to which wood dwelling
| houses are exposed, has been
evolved by engineers employed by
the National Lumber Manufac-
! turers' association, OF Washington,
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 flu
| ture home builders who adopt il,
| it is claimed, but the discovery will
have a profound effect upon city
building regulations. With some
| further refinements not deemed
necessary in dwelling houses, the
new construction has been adapted
! to factory and business buildings.
! These plans have been approved
| by the fire insurance underwriters,
and as result some Of the largest
cities in the country, New York
among them, are> considering re-
| admitting frame construction into
| fire districts for years barred to
wooden buildings of any sort.
The evolution of fire-resistive
frame construction was incidental
to campaign inaugurated some
| years. ago by the lumber industry
to remove from wood the single
| disadvantage under which it COM
peted 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 gainsay
the cheapness of wood, nor its
beauty and comfort, nor even its
durability, since many of the old
colonial mansions still in existence
are made Of wood. But there has
been no getting 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 your building
by fire. Many an owner of a
beautiful and commodious frame
house has wished regretfully that |
he could have afforded to build |
his home Of fire-proof materials.
In ascribing an undue fire haz-
ard to frame construction, the pro-
ducers of fire-proofing invented no |
new argument. They merely used |
what for years has been common
belief, namely, that there is a di-
rect relation between the extensive |
use of frame construction in the |
mi
nual fire losses to which this coun
try is subjected. Three of every |
four buildings in American cities |
are made of wood throughout. The
United States has the greatest AM
nual fire loss Of any country in
the world. To assume that one
of these facts results from the
other seems to be only putting two
and two together.
Science and Fire Hazards
But, like some other American
Industries producing standard com
modities which suffer from adverse
popular opinion, the hewers and
sellers of wood have been turning
the cool searchlight of science upon
the alleged fire hazard resting upon
frame construction. In this COT
umn not long ago it was shown
how successfully the scientist has
refuted the opinion that it Is dan
gerous to eat canned food. Now
another group of scientists has
demonstrated beyond argument the
surprising fact that frame build
ings, even as they are constructed
today, are not nearly so subject
10 hull In nf |
including the steel-frame buildings
which are 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 of the largest American cities
as compiled by the national board
of Fire Underwriters. These fig
ures, to be sure, show that over
half the fires i'll those cities that
year occurred in frame buildings,
but the figure loses it's apparent
significance when it Is set down be-
side the fact that three-fourths OF
all the buildings in the SO cities
are Of frame construction. To
every thousand frame buildings,
there was a fraction in excess OF
16 fires, but the fires in brick and
stone buildings ran over "a to the
thousand and in all sorts of build
ings other than frame, 70 TO the
thousand.
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 a building is constructed as
from what goes on inside the build
ing. A building may be made en-
tirely of steel and brick, but IL
it houses an automobile garage or ;
q paint shop or paper box factory
or any other fire-hazardous indus '
try. q fire may break out and de-
stroy the building totally.
Fires Result From Careiessness.
The lesson in this for the aver {
age householder is that he himself {
and his family constitute a large
part of the fire hazard in his {
home. Nearly ha2f the fires in /
dwelling houses result from care {
lessness. Faulty construction ac- '
counts 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 the shingle
roof, that favorite soapegoat, is ex-
onerated. The investigation is
showing that when the cause of
d dwelling house fire is given as
sparks on roof" the truth usu-
ally is that defective chimney was
tho incendiary. Poor mortar, and
an insufficient quantity of that,
was probably used in the first
place. The flues in the chimney
we're unlined with tile. In time
n brick drops out of the chimney,