Appalling Fire Waste

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 759, 4 September 1929, Page 8

Appalling Fire Waste

Dominion’s Mounting Losses (The SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter) PARLIAMENT BLDGS., Tuesday. FIRE losses in New Zealand have become so appallingly great that the Chief Inspector of Fire Brigades, Mr. 1. l ■ Hugo, urges compulsory enactments for the installation oi automatic protection appliances in specified classes o buildings. . - . The overwhelming extent to which carelessness is to blame for destructive fires is further vindication of organised fire-lessons among the young people.

The Chief Inspector, in. liis report to Parliament today, says the number of fire calls received throughout the 49 fire districts for the year ended March 31 last was 3,046, of which 1,350 were properties, 354 chimneys, 609 bush, grass and rubbish, 637 false alarms, and 96 out-of-district fires. The losses (all quotations, unless otherwise stated, include the loss sustained on both insured and non-insured property) throughout the fire districts amounted to £ M 0,596. The four districts to suffer most were Wellington £294,070, Auckland £74,958, Dunedin £42,775, and Christchurch £39,166. Incendiarism is stated as the cause of 40 fires involving a loss of £11,210, while 53 fires occurred in unoccupied buildings, with a loss of £8,683. Most of the fires were in connection with domestic matters, and nearly all of them were due to carelessness. Electric irons, kettles and cookers left switched on were responsible for 40 outbreaks involving a loss of £34,540; children with matches, and matches thrown down alight, caused 125 fires and a loss of £36,993; cigarette butts and smoking, 6S fires, and a loss of £12,935; sparks from copper fires and fireplaces, 92 fires, and a loss of £12,746; live ashes thrown out, 32 fires, and a loss of £11,293; gas rings and stoves, 26 fires, and a loss of £8,103; airing clothes before the fire, 15 fires, and a loss of £4,423; naked lights in proximity to benzine, 49 fires, and a loss of £2,558; a total of 447 fires causing loss amounting to £123,591.

The fire loss throughout New Zealand for the 12 months ended December 31 last Is estimated at £1,636,118, on a conservative basis, and it is a safe assumption that the actual loss exceeds this amount. With the population estimated at 1,453,517, this gives an average loss of 22s 6d a head of population. The loss in the 49 districts for the same 12 months amounted to £683,082 which, -with a population of 611,280, residing within the districts, gives a per capita loss of 22s 4d, while the loss for 542,237 persons resident in other than fire districts amounted to

£953,036, an average of 22s 7d per capita. _ , “Carelessness in regard to fire ana its consequences is too deeply ingrained to expect any radical lefoini ill that respect in our present abult population,” the inspector says, "and in my oginion one of the most effective means of reducing the prevailing excessive number of outbreaks of fire, and which at present is proving to be so in the United States of America and in Canada, is the compulsory teaching of fire prevention in schools and colleges and by that method inculcating in the rising generation an individual sense of responsibility and care in respect to danger and loss by fire.

“Another effective means toward a reduction of our enormous fire waste is the installation of automatic protection in factories, emporiums, warehouses and other large commercial establishments. There is now installed in buildings throughout the 49 fire districts, 45 auto-sprinkler installations and 142 auto-detector installations of various patterns, or 187 in all. This is only a tithe of what there should be. There are also 106 private manual fire alarms. It is on record that one of the auto-sprinkler systems has throughout the world extinguished 25.000 fires with, including water damage, an average loss of £6O a fire. ‘‘According to published records of results covering practically every country in the world, had such protection been installed there is every right to assume that the losses would have averaged less than 10 per cent, of what actually occurred, and property to the value of something over £333,000 would have been saved from destruction. Surely such authentic records are a reliable guarantee that the installation of auto-protection secures almost certain immunity from heavy loss by fire. “After all the publicity given to this subject, it is surprising that one or more of the numei'ous Chambers of Commerce in New Zealand have not made some practical move to remedy this regrettable state of affairs.