THE FIRE BOARD AND THE BOROUGH COUNCIL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10017, 13 April 1910, Page 5

THE FIRE BOARD AND THE BOROUGH COUNCIL.

WATER PKEb'SUSiS AND FIRES. ARE THE BRIGADE EAGER TO COMPLAIN? Mr R. Brown (Secretary of the Masterton Fire Board) wrote drawing the attention of the Council to a report submitted by the Superintendent of the Fire Brigade stating that' at the fire . which occurred recently at Uen Ge r ''s place there was only a water pressure of about J-JOlbs; also, that the fire exits had been closed at the Foresters' Hall, arid recommendin.< < hat another escape be n;side at the side ot the building, ami that 40

case-; of kerosene were efored within t/;e bj&iness area of the Hon,ugh. In regard t.) the mafctsrs mentioned in the letter the Town Clfrk and Engineer reported as .follows: —

"I am at a los 3 to understand what is intended to be conveyed to the Council by the report of the Superintendant of the Fire Brigade relating to the fire at Uen Gen's on the 14th of February last, seeing that no attempt whatever was made to use the fire hydrants, the fire being easily and quickly suppressed from buckets. Had the brigade (a3 i s apparently the case) instead of baing eager to complain as to the want of pressure in the town's mains, taken the trouble to connect their hose .with the mains, they would have found the pressure to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 901ba per square inch available for theic purpose. This, the Council will easily understand, waa accomplished by the liorotgh turncock diverting almost the whole of the contents of the IGinch pipe operating the necessary sluice valves, and concentrating its volume in the Queen maiiis, at a point most convenient to the scene of the fire. It may well be that the pressure gauge at the Church street fire station was vEegisteruig SOlbs only, that being explained by, the concentration of the town supply to Queen street before instanced. I have it on record that at the moment of the alarm 84lbs was Jivr/labls in a remote part of the town, an shown bv a pressure guage, the accuracy of which cannot be questioned. With regard to the third item on the subject of storage of kerosene ths Borough has a by-law (No. 13). In the section relating to Fire and the Storage of Dangerous Goods, which provides for licensing build-

ings containing soocia of the description referred to, but during my term of office the by-knv has been regarded as a dead letter on the grounds, I understand, that somewhere about the years 1906-/, areturn was presented to the Borough Council of the persona so storing, and that rjo action wag taken. The bv-

law in question was made on ihe 24th of October, 1905, and so far as I can learn has never been enforced. It would appear however that provision has been made for the Fire Board itself to deal with this question, as will be seen by reference to sectiun 43, sub-section D, of the Fire Brigade Act, 1908, which enacts that the Fire Board may make regulations for the storage of kerosene, etc., etc."