FIRE EXTINGUISHING EXPERIMENTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 137, 18 April 1879, Page 2

FIRE EXTINGUISHING EXPERIMENTS.

By permission of the City Lands Committee, a trial has been made on the. vacant land at Whitefriars of an improved method; pro'posed.to be adopted for extinguishing fires, and which in the result proved to be fairly successful. As the trial-was intended to be a competitive one between-water as at present applied and the improved method, the inventor of which is'Mr T. Atkins, it became necessary to have the trials in both cases under precisely the same conditions. For that purpose a steam fire engine was employed in both and two wooden structures were erected, each of the same size,! and containing the like quantity of most inflammable materials. The first structure fired was allowed to become thoroughly ignited, when the steam fire engine employed for the purpose was started,-and' threw a- volume of water into the burning mass equal to 300 gallons per minute,'and at which rate it occupied 13 minutes ih extinguishing the fire. The second structure was then ignited, and- allowed the same time in which to arrive at the same state of combustion as the first. The engine, being then connected with the apparatus for producing the required results, was then started, and succeeded in extinguishing this fire in two and a half minutes, showing a gain in time over the first trial' often and-a half minutes, and'an econpmy in the water used of " 3150 gallons—equal to rather over 80 per cent., with of course a corresponding increase in tlie value of. the salvage. The principle of this new method of dealing with fires_ is very, simple, easily managed,' and the apparatus employed can be attached at small cost to any form of fire engine at present in use. The; apparatus is somewhat, similar to a small stove, which, being charged with the combination of materials and ignited, the products of combustion, instead of being allowed to escape, are drawn into the suction pipe of the pump in combination with the water at each stroke. The gases'and water, in passing through the various parts of the pumping .apparatus, and being under pressure, become;intimately combined,, and are then conveyed in the ordinary manner through the hose and branch pipe, from which they issue in apparently the same condition; as water per se.—Daily Chronicle.