The exceeding dryness of the atmosphere in the United States produces
such an inflammability in buildings, that when a fire breaks out it
proceeds with surprising velocity. Owing to this circumstance Americans
have organised the most perfect system in the world of extinguishing
fires, though all their efforts are often in vain. A stranger in New
York or Boston would be astonished at the immense uproar caused by an
outbreak of fire. Bells are rung, gongs sounded, and steam fire-engines
rush along the streets regardless of everything. The unaccustomed
stranger is apt to make a run of it when he sees the engines coming;
the American simply steps on to the ‘side-walk’ or into a ‘store’ for
a moment. It is provided by the city government that ‘the officers and
men, with their teams and apparatus, shall have the right of way while
going to a fire, through any street, lane, or alley,’ &c.; and most
unreservedly do the said officers and men make use of this permission.
If any old woman’s stall is at the corner of a street round which the
steamers must go, there is no help for it; over it goes. If a buggy
is left standing at a corner, the owner must not be surprised if but
three wheels are left on it when he returns. Accidents of this latter
kind, however, are rare; people recognise and yield willingly the right
of way; and the quicker the engines go to a fire, the better pleased
everybody is. It is quite a point of rivalry among the firemen who
shall get the first water on a fire, and is mentioned always in the
report of the engineer.
This is how it looks from the outside; but the greater part of those
who see the engines go to a fire have no idea of the inner working of
the system. All they know is that when there is a fire the engines
go and put it out. We shall therefore now proceed to shew, first,
the means for communicating alarms of fire; and second, the means for
extinguishing fires when discovered.
There are in Boston (Mass.), which we may take as an example of a
well-protected city, about two hundred and thirty-five alarm-boxes,
which are small iron boxes placed at street corners, on public
buildings, and in any convenient and necessary locality. Each box is
connected by two wires with the head office at the City Hall, and has
its number painted in red, and a notice stating where the key is kept,
which is generally the nearest house. The authorities usually confide
the key to some person whose premises are open all night, such as
the proprietor of an hotel, an apothecary, or a doctor. When the box
is opened, nothing is seen but a small hook at the top, the interior
being concealed by another iron lid. Under this second lid is a steel
cylinder with pieces of ebony let into its circumference to correspond
with the number of the box. This cylinder is connected with one of the
telegraph wires; and a steel spring which presses against it, with the
other. When the hook is pulled down a clock-work arrangement causes the
cylinder to revolve four times; the steel spring consequently passes
over the entire surface of the cylinder four times, and contact is
broken at the points where the spring touches only the non-conducting
ebony. For instance, if the circumference of the cylinder in box 125
could be unrolled, it would present an appearance something like
this: I II IIIII. Let us now follow the wires to the top of the City
Hall, where, night and day, sits an operator watching the recording
instrument. Here in a small room are numerous electrical instruments
of all sorts, gongs, switches, keys, levers, and wires. In an attic
overhead are the batteries. As soon as a box is opened and ‘pulled’ a
bell strikes, and a recording instrument in front turns out a slip of
paper, on which is printed the box number; thus
— — — — — — — —
would mean box 125. It prints this four times—the number of revolutions
made by the cylinder in the box—to avoid any error.
On the other side of the operator are three clock faces bearing
numerals from one to nine, and a pointer. The one to the right is for
the units, the middle one for the tens, the one to the left for the
hundreds. Under them is a lever working horizontally. Immediately the
operator receives the box number, he sets these pointers to correspond
with it—namely, the left one he puts at 1, the middle at 2, the right
one at 5—thus making 125—and then moves the lever underneath.
Now let us see what is the result of this manœuvring. Wires connect
these machines with various church bells and gongs in all parts of
the city, which ring out the alarm as the operator moves the lever.
There are thirty-eight such bells in Boston. When there is a church
bell in the neighbourhood, the fire department affixes an electrical
hammer to it; if, however, there is no public bell in the right place,
a large gong is erected. The machine at City Hall is automatic when
once started, and causes the bells to sound the alarm three times as
follows. For box 125 they would strike once; then a pause and strike
twice; another pause and strike five times; then a much longer pause
and repeat twice. For box 218 they strike 2—1—8, always sounding the
number three times with intervals between. So quickly is all this
managed that in half a minute after a person opens and ‘pulls’ a box he
hears the bells begin to respond.
In case that the engines which go on the first alarm are not
sufficiently numerous to extinguish the fire, a second alarm is given
by the operator striking ten blows on the bells, which brings several
more engines. If the fire is very serious, a third alarm brings still
more engines with hose and ladder companies. This is given by striking
twelve blows twice. If the conflagration is becoming very serious
indeed, the entire fire department is summoned by striking twelve blows
three times. This, of course, very rarely happens. Indeed so efficient
are the men and apparatus, that even a second alarm is quite unusual.
The second and third alarms are communicated to the City Hall operator
by simply ‘pulling’ the same box a second and third time; or if the
pulling apparatus should have been destroyed at an early stage of the
fire, by transmitting a request by a Morse telegraph key, which is
placed in every box for the use of the employés when out testing the
circuits. Every one knows the number of the box situated near to his
residence or place of business; so, if awakened by the bells in the
night, he simply counts the box number, and if it is not near him,
turns over and goes to sleep again reassured; whilst if it chance to be
his number, he is at once ready to render any assistance.
The fire telegraph is also made use of by the city authorities for
calling out the police or the military in case of a disturbance, and
also for informing the parents who send their children to the public
schools when there is to be no class, on account of bad weather or
other reasons. Each of these circumstances has its special number.
There is also a gong placed in every police station, which is struck
directly from the boxes, and it frequently happens that the police have
a flaming building barricaded by a rope, before the engines arrive.
Next, the means for extinguishing fires when discovered. In the city
of Boston there are twenty-nine steam fire-engines in actual service,
and seven held in reserve; eight chemical engines, throwing water
impregnated with soda and sulphuric acid, which also serves as the
motive-power; one steam self-propelling engine; one fire-boat to defend
the water-front of the city; nearly forty hose carriages, about seventy
thousand feet of hose, and twelve hook and ladder companies; besides
other apparatus of various kinds, such as hand-engines, coal-wagons,
sleighs for carrying the hose in winter, and several aërial ladders.
The engines weigh from seven to nine thousand pounds, and cost about a
thousand pounds each.
One of the most interesting features in the American fire-system is
the extreme ingenuity that is exercised to insure the speedy arrival
of the apparatus at a fire. As has been said, in less than a minute
after the alarm-box has been pulled the bells are ringing out the alarm
all over the city; and—incredible as it may seem—sometimes in _ten
seconds_ after the alarm is rung, the engines have left their stations
with steam up and every one prepared for work! Perhaps the best way to
give a general idea of how this wonderful celerity is attained is to
describe the interior arrangements of an engine-house.
Usually an engine and a hose-carriage are kept in one house. This is
a two-story building with a small tower or look-out. In the cellar
are kept the steam-heaters and coal; on the first floor in front are
the engine and hose-carriage, at the back the stables; on the second
floor the sleeping-room of the men, their smoking and reading room,
and a small tool-shop. There is a sort of wooden tunnel running up by
the side of the stairs from the cellar to the top of the house, in
which are hung the lengths of spare hose. In the front of the building
is a large gateway, kept closed, for the entrance and exit of the
engine. The engine stands facing the door, and by the side of it the
hose-carriage. The firemen’s helmets and coats are hung on these; and
in the engine the materials for getting up the fire are laid at the
bottom; and close by is a sort of tow-torch soaked in oil, which is
lighted and thrown on the fire by the engineman when they start. So
inflammable is the material laid in the engine-furnace that the fire is
lighted instantaneously. Coming up through the floor, and connecting
with two pipes at the rear of the engine, are two tubes from the
steam-heater mentioned above. This is simply a small boiler by which
the boiler of the fire-engine is kept filled night and day with hot
water, so that steam is up immediately after the fire is lighted. By
the side of the engine is a large gong, on which the alarm is sounded
by the same current that causes the strokes on the bells outside. Under
this is a lever holding back a powerful spring, which, when released,
opens the stable-doors without any attention from the firemen!
There are three horses—two for the engine, and one for the
hose-carriage. They are kept in small stalls, and face the door of the
house, with the door of the stall just in front of them, so that when
the door is opened, the horses, on stepping out, stand by the side of
the engine in readiness to be harnessed. And not only this, but the
horses, without exception, are so well trained, that the instant the
door is opened they run out and stand by the side of the engine-pole.
They are always completely harnessed, and their harness is so
constructed that in order to attach them to the engine only the joining
of a few snap-hooks is necessary.
One fireman is always on patrol on the ‘floor,’ whose duty it
is to count and register the alarm; another is on patrol in the
neighbourhood. They sleep with everything on but their coat and boots,
and each has a distinct place assigned to him, which he takes on the
striking of an alarm. So the gong strikes, the stable-doors open, the
horses rush out, the men tumble down-stairs from their rooms above, the
horses are harnessed; and if the alarm calls for them, the doors are
thrown open, and they are gone, occasionally, as was said, in ten or
twelve seconds from the striking of the alarm.
The city of Boston is divided into ten fire districts, and each
district placed under the charge of an assistant-engineer. Usually
about five or six engines, with their accompanying hose-carriages, two
hook and ladder companies, a coal-wagon, and one of the wagons of the
protective brigade—carrying tarpaulins and rubber blankets, to protect
property from injury by water, supported by the insurance companies—go
to every fire. The entire force of the Fire department in 1876 was six
hundred and sixty-seven men, controlled by three fire commissioners,
one nominated by the mayor, and confirmed by the city council every
year.
Such are the means possessed by a city of rather more than four hundred
thousand inhabitants for protection against fire; and with such a
splendid system and such a force of men and machines, it is difficult
to understand how a fire could attain such awful proportions as that of
1872, when the loss amounted to four millions sterling.
Boston always took great pride and felt much confidence in her
granite-fronted places of business, but her recent fire has relieved
her of that misplaced confidence. The blocks of granite crumbled away,
cracked and fell apart, and even exploded. Of course this was an
exceptionally great heat, but one sees fewer warehouses fronted with
granite now than before the fire.
Even during so terrible a calamity as this fire the characteristic
wit of the American did not desert him. No sooner were the flames
extinguished in the burnt district, than the occupiers of the premises
put up notices on their lots stating their present residences and
future plans. Usually, in the larger cities of the United States, a
value is put upon time of which we have no conception in England. When
a house is burnt down in London or Edinburgh, half a year may elapse
before arrangements are made to build it up again. On the morning
after a fire in New York, we were amused in observing that workmen
were already engaged in preparations for a new building. Owing to
this species of energy in the American people, the two half-destroyed
cities of Boston and Chicago are built up again, handsomer and stronger
than ever. And still the work of improving the fire department goes
on. There are in the newspapers almost daily accounts of the trial
of new engines, improved ladders, longer fire-escapes, and surer
fire-extinguishing compounds, and nothing is spared in checking the
tyranny of what has been so aptly termed a ‘good servant but bad
master.’