The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-10-07
Frederick | askin's Letter



Washington. D. C.. Oct. ga new
typs Of frame building construc-
ton which, without the use Of any
Of the so-calied nre-proofing ma
teTials 1t all. will cut in two the
fire haxard TO which wood dwell
ing houses are exposed has been
evolved by engineers employed by
the lumber industry Of America.
The announcement comes from the
National Lumber Manufacturers
Association, Of Washington, sci
entific bureau devoted to the solu-
tton OF problems affecting the in
dustry which maintains it.
Z Not only win the new frame
construction greatly add to the
safety, financial and physical, OF
the future home-builders who adopt
1t. it il claimed, but the discovery
will have q 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 bust
ness buildings. These plans have
been approved by the fire insur-
ance underwriters, and an result
some of the largest cities In the
country, New York among them.
are considering readmitting frame
construction into fire districts for
years barred to wooden buildings
Of aDy 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 land comfort, nor even
its durability, since many. OF the
old colonial mansions still in ex-
istence 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 commQ-
dious frame house has wished re-
gretfully that he could have af-
forded to build his home Of fire
proof materials.
rIn 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 COM
mon belief-namely, that there is a
direct relation between the extern
sive use of frame construction in
the United States and the enormous
annual fire losses to which this
country is subjected. Three of ev-
cry four buildings in American
cities are made of wood through
out. The United States has the
greatest annual 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 adj
verse popular opinion, the hewers
and sellers of wood have been
turning the cool searchlight of sci
| ence upon the alleged fire hazard
resting upon frame construction
In this column not long ago it vas
shown how successfully the scien-
fist has refuted the opinion that il
is dangerous to eat canned food
Now another group of scientists
has demonstrated beyond arsu-
ment the surprising fact that frame
buildings, even as they are cen.
structed today, are not nearly sc
subject ITO fire as buildings Of
other sorts, including the steel
frame buildings which are known
as fire-proof.
To make this demonstration, th'
scientists of the Technical ant
Research department Of the Ma
tional Lumber Manufacturers As
ISOLATION took the 1921 figures Oh
fires in SO of the largest American
cities as compiled by the Nationa
Board OF Fire Underwriters. Thcs
Figures, to be sure, show that ove
half the fires in those cities tina
year occurred in frame buildings
but the figure loses its apparen
significance when it is set dow
beside the fact that three-fourth
Of all the buildings in the SO cite
are of frame construction. To ev
cry thousand frame building
there was a fraction in excess c
16 fires, but the fires in brick an
stone buildings ran over "a to tn