[Illustration: OLD DOORWAY AT NEWPORT R.I.]
The liability to injury by fire is a hazard inherent to all buildings,
and this danger is a constant menace whose threatening destruction of
values imposes upon the owner a persistent consideration, which endures
as long as the building stands.
As every method of construction, the various mechanical processes and
the stock in each stage of manufacture bears some relation to the
fire-hazard as a supporter or possible originator of combustion, the
engineer whose duties pertain to these matters must necessarily also
consider the question of the fire-hazard in the important phase of
prevention, as well as the direct application of those engineering
problems required in the design and installation of fire apparatus.
The fire-loss is a most oppressive tax, much of which can be abated by
the application of well-established means of prevention. In a practical
sense, certain fires are to be considered as unpreventable, being caused
by exposure to fires in other burning buildings, but there are very few
fires whose destructive results might not have been prevented by the
exercise of precautions entirely feasible in their nature.
These several topics will be considered in reference to the reduction of
the fire-loss on isolated manufacturing property, because the exercise
of every possible precaution may not avail anything if the property is
liable to be imperilled by fires originating in adjacent buildings.