FIRE PROTECTION

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22506, 14 September 1938, Page 4

FIRE PROTECTION

ADDRESS BY MR R. PJAMESON

LUNCHEON OF. ROTARY CLUB “The study of fire protection is a study of many subjects, among which human nature plays no small part,” said Mr R. P. Jameson, of Christchurch, in an address at the luncheon of the Christchurch Rotary Club yesterday on “Fire Protection.”

After mentioning cases illustrating the part played by human nature in its relationship to fixe, Mr Jameson traced the origin of the electric automatic fire alarm systems. “I am happy to say,” he said, “that the first alarm system was produced in New Zealand. Moreover, of the half a dozen or so alarm systems that are in use in other parts of the British Empire, 90 per cent, of them at least were New Zealand inventions.

“We have had quite a number of cases where the brigade has been called out by the heat of fires in office wastepaper baskets. Though a modern sensitive alarm system does function with a very small abnormal rise in temperature, and calls the brigade immediately, it naturally follows that the extent of the fire loss is dependent on two factors. These are the inflammability of the material stored, round the seat of the fire, and the laydut of the factory division walls, and also the distance between the fire station and the fire. These factors are highly im nortant and occasionally we have tc decline a risk because these factors may nullify the service of an automatic alarm system, when conditions are unfavourable.” At the conclusion of his address, Mi Jameson gave a demonstration with an automatic fire alarm system.