PROTECTION AGAINST FIRES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Issue 1530, 2 December 1873, Page 34

PROTECTION AGAINST FIRES.

The following is from flie Saturday Review :■• -Mr Joseph Bird's work on protection against (ire is a thoughtful and practical discussion of u question .of incalculable social moment. Mr Bird argues that, the decisive moment at a lire—the crisis which determines whether it shall be a trivial accident or a grand earns trophe, a private mi-fortune, or a national Cilamity, generally occurs within a very short time of its discovery, It. is possible to put it out there and then, with a single garden engine, it may be, or a few pails of water ; but if these are not at hand it takes from live to fifteen minutes to bring up the lire engines; and by that time, if • wind and weather favor it, the fire may have got so far ahead, that no efforts of the firemen can put it down. Then it spreads in every direction far faster than they can follow it. Mr Bird's theory is that the machinery of the Fire Brigade, \vi:h its vast apparatus and its powerful organization is calculated only to " fight " fires when they have become so dangerous that the chances of the contest are dubious, and that they should be supplemented by those cheap, simph, and accessible nieaus of dealing with it, which if at hand would generally be effectual at the time of the discovery, A few hundreds or thousands of hand engines distributed through a city, in charge of resident clerks or porters, or the like, would in his opinion put out nine fires in ten before the engines could arrive ; and even in the. case of a conflagration would be invaluable in wetting buildings at a little distance from the lire, and putting out the Hying sparks which fall upon roofs in every direction, and light up fresh centres of flame while the engines are busy with the original one. Pie further complains that fire brigades are apt to think a great deal more of the means than of the end; to look upon fires as their monopoly, and resent the interference of any unauthorized intruder who may put one out before their arrival. Volunteer fire brigades on the American system he affirms to be riot only demoralizing to the young men who join them, but a direct encouragement to incendiarism ; and he gives some facts which seem to bear out a statement which we should be naturally reluctant to believe. On building, and particularly 011 roofing, as well as on domestic precautions the book contains some useful suggestions and is certainly worth reading.